


Drop Every Fear

by pinkladies



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom
Genre: Cheating, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fighting, Homophobia, M/M, Smut, They hate each other's ass, UNTIL THEY DON'T, at some point, figure skater, hockey player, ish, like they're real saps, no clear scene of that but it's mentioned, nothing too graphic, soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkladies/pseuds/pinkladies
Summary: Harry Styles is a figure skater who grew up hating hockey players as they are the most entitled pieces of shit he's ever seen. Knives come out when he meets Louis at his practice and somehow cannot seem to get rid of him.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I wrote this a very long time ago, like in 2016 or something so later in the fic, Jay, Fiz and Robin are all there and I didn't really wanna write them out of the story... Also, the beginning might seem very unrealistic, but how Louis and Harry met is exactly how this person and I met, nothing happened between us, but I got inspired by that. 
> 
> This story is also set in Quebec in Canada so don't be surprised if there are some references you don't understand. I just hope you enjoy it, thank you for reading!

It had already been 6 weeks since Harry’s surgery, and somehow he was still recovering which was killing him. The doctor said he’d be back on the ice most likely 2 weeks after it, but he had lost too much blood during the surgery which ended up giving anemia. 

He was still fighting against it, taking pills twice a day to gain back some strength and would take his normal pills everyday along with some pain killers occasionally. 

He was quite ecstatic when the doctor told him he could now get back on the ice but step my step, which for him was a massive victory. He hadn’t put a foot on the ice for 6 weeks and it was eating him out alive. He had never gone this long without skating. 

He arrives ridiculously in advance to practice and takes the time to perfectly stretch before putting on his skates once people start to arrive in the locker room.

Harry is on a high level of figure skating and currently is the best skater in his category in the whole country which makes him really proud. But he wants to keep that title and wish that one day he could end up at the Olympics, but for that he’d have to fucking land his quadruple axel which is far from being done. He’s been working on that for at least 5 months and now with the break, he’ll probably have lost the technique. 

At least their skating club understands their needs and only schedules 5 people at the time when Harry is on the ice because they goddamn know how much he hates when people get in his way. People have to understand that at this level of skating, if a kid stands in his way when he’s about to jump a triple axel, he won’t have time to stop before he actually runs into them. 

It actually happened once, he was scheduled with younger kids and they were all so impressed by his jumps and instead of practicing they were all just staring at him which was very distracting. And then this little girl had just finished her spin and didn’t seem to know which way to go to get out of his way because he was doing his program, and obviously she didn’t go the right way and luckily, Harry had good reflexes so when they fell, he spun her so she’d fall on him instead of the other way. 

After this, there was no way Harry was stepping on the ice if there were kids. 

He finally gets on the ice and realizes that he hasn’t seen Stacey, his skating buddy, and wonders if she’s going to come. Stacey had been competing with him ever since they were kids and they’re both on really high level of skating. It’s amazing how they grew up together and are both so far in this sport. 

He joins his coach Annie on the second bench of the ice and the first thing she says is not even hello but, “Jeez man, you’ve lost some weight,” Well thanks. 

“Don’t mention it, I know,” Harry groans and put his water bottle on the ramp and stretches a bit more. “Isn’t Stacey coming?” 

“Yeah, said she’d be a bit late, she got held up at work,” Annie explains while looking at her phone. 

Harry goes to start his warm up when Annie stops him by grabbing his arm gently, “Don’t push yourself too much alright? If it gets too much, tell me, I don’t want to you passing out on me on first practice,” She tells and he rolls his eyes and goes to skate around the ice before fully starting his warm up. 

He quickly realizes that, indeed, he’s much weaker than he was 6 weeks ago. He’s already starting to be tired after only 3 laps which is very unusual. So he decides to go back to the ramp and Annie gives him the look so he just mumbles to shut up and takes a sip of water before going back. 

He stops when he sees Stacey stepping on the ice and skates to hug her really tight which causes them to almost fall over.

“I missed you so much,” She squeals and giggles in the hug. 

“God I missed you too, t’was fucking hell not being able to skate for so long,” Harry says letting go and stakes next to her to the ramp. 

“It was only 6 weeks, it was good for you to rest babe, you don’t ever let yourself take some time off,”

“Oh not you too, my mom said the same bullshit, I do take some breaks, like one weekend off a month or so,” He justifies but realizes that it might be true, but if he wants to keep being the best, he needs to practice more and more. 

“Enough chatting, we’ll start our routine then jumps or spins? Harry?” Annie asks.

“Uh not jumps, don’t know if I’m ready to jump into those yet,” He jokes and Stacey swats his arm telling him off for his stupid pun. 

“Alright, slalom 2 feet to one after one lap, front and back. Twice and then we’ll do the twizzles and braquets and stuff, go!” Annie orders and she moves to the radio to put on some warm up music which Harry smiles at because he had recommended Little Mix’s latest album which she brushed off but look at her now. 

Harry and Stacey both warm up to the sound of Grown around the ice and Harry playfully singing along until he gets a bit too tired to do it and has to focus on what he’s doing with his feet. 

He quickly spots hockey players walking up to the ramp and Harry absolutely hates when they come to watch their practices. They all act like they’re the kings of the place and own everything when all they do is play with a stick and a puck and steal their hours at the arena. 

And of course, after exhaustion, Harry stumbles during his one foot slalom and obviously it has to be in front of the hockey players, he’s back on stability quickly but that doesn’t stop the guys to make some nasty comment. 

“Hey there princess, what happened,” One of them laughs and Harry is so fucking fed up with their bullshit.

“I’d love to see you try to do half the shit I do, princess,” He retorts and they all start laughing.

“Everyone can twirl around like that,” A small guy laughs.

“At least I don’t cry when I fall on the ice like all of you,” He slowly gets closer to the ramp and Stacey has joined him and when he looks at his coach, she’s busy arguing with a parent to pay attention to what’s going on. 

“At least we’re not fucking faggots,” One of them says and that’s it. 

Stacey quickly grabs Harry arm to keep him from going at that guy’s throat. This isn’t the first time that something like this happened and last time, Harry punched the guy so hard he broke his nose and had to go to the hospital. Thankfully Harry got away with it pretty well, he was simply suspended from the arena for 2 weeks so he went to practice somewhere else by himself. 

“Hey mate shut your fucking mouth,” The small one growls and takes everyone by surprise. This is the first time that a hockey player has stood up to show he’s not going to encourage homophobia. “You fucking twat, let’s go boys,” He orders and everyone follows him back to the rooms.

“Uh, that was weird,” Stacey states and before Harry can answer, Annie comes closer and yells at them because they’re not doing anything. 

She pulls them to the end of the ice and start their routine as of doing three turns, twizzles, mohawks, choctaw, etc. They do it for a good ten to twenty minutes before Annie decides it’s enough and they go to the ramp and hydrate themselves while their coach looks at what she could do for the spins. 

“Alright, we’ll start with the backspins,” Annie orders and they both execute. 

Harry keeps going for a good twenty more minutes before he’s literally way too tired and starts feeling dizzy so he decides to get off the ice and go home.


	2. Chapter 2

Summer had gone by pretty quickly and it was already time for Harry to go back to college which he thought it was an absolute waste of time. His mom had already spent so much money into skating, she didn’t need to put so much into his education either since he didn’t give a fuck about it.

He was doing basic classes like psychology and sociology and the other classes like English, physical education, philosophy and economy. He didn’t need any of those since he was pretty sure he’d make a career out of figure skating.

The only thing he’d wish for the most was to not have any hockey players in any of his classes, but he perfectly knew it was almost inevitable because they were all in the same program and there weren’t that many classes in the program.

Harry took two years off of school to focus on skating against his mother’s wish, but he did it anyway. He had threatened to not attend any classes and if so, he’d fail everything on purpose, so in the end she let him take 2 years off.

So there he is, starting college with a bunch of twats everywhere. Everyone was younger than him which made him cringe, but he was the one who decided to not go to school earlier so, he had to deal with it.

His first class was literature and he arrived just before the bell rang but his teacher hadn’t arrived yet. Very professional…

He looked around the room to see if he knew anyone, which he sadly didn’t, so he sat at the very back of the class against the wall waiting until the teacher arrived.

…

“So how was your day at school sweetheart?” His mother asked at the table while sitting down putting her plate on it.

“Wonderful!” He said sarcastically.

He had just started eating like he used to. He wasn’t able to eat any meat after the surgery. He was only “eating” whatever was liquid for almost 3 weeks. He then moved on to pastas and stuff he could chew easily. Now was finally the time he could start eating meat again without feeling like his jaw was about to fall off.

“Do you still take meds for your jaw?” She asked ignoring his previous comment.

“Not really, hasn’t felt any pain in a week or so,” He mumbled eating his food and spaced out on the whole conversation about his mother being promoted at work. He knew she was mostly talking to Robin anyway since Harry didn’t even understand what her job was really.

…

The next day, he had physical education so he took this as an opportunity to wear his Lululemon outfits that they had sent him this summer. He was sponsored by them which was awesome, he would receive free clothes only to wear them during competition to give them some promotion.

When he got to class, everyone was sitting in a room and as everyone turned to look at him, he concluded that he was late.

“Sorry,” He whispered and mostly everyone turned their heads back to the teacher.

“Just take a seat, mister?” The teacher, which Harry had completely forgotten his last name, asked.

“Styles, Harry Styles.” He said sitting down at the end of the row next to a blonde guy who smiled at him kindly.

The teacher explained what they would do for the rest of the semester and then asked them to put themselves into teams of two which made Harry panic because he didn’t know anyone in the class.

“Wanna team up with me?” The blonde guy next to him proposed and Harry sighed in relief nodding. “I’m Niall, nice to meet ya” He introduced himself and held out his hand for Harry to shake which he did.

“I’m Harry,”

“I know, you said it earlier,” He laughs. “Hey, don’t you do figure skating or something?” Niall asks and Harry is taken aback by his question. He’d expect those kind of questions from big cities where he’d compete but not here.

“Yeah? How do you know?”

“My sister won’t shut up about you, she’s like obsessed or something, she’ll probably die when she finds out I’m your mate from PE,” He explains and it still makes no sense as to who his sister is.

“What’s her name?”

“Alyssa, Alyssa Horan,” Oh! Her. Yeah, now it makes sense. He used to be her coach. He gave up coaching because it was taking too much of his time and he didn’t actually like it.

“Oh yeah, little prodigy that one,” He chuckled and they both talked for a while until the teacher called for attention.

After talking for a bit, Harry realized that Niall was in all of his classes except for one which was economy. Maybe the semester wouldn’t be as bad as he thought he’d be.  
They both went to the cafeteria because Niall kept moaning about how hungry he was, that idiot hadn’t eaten breakfast before going to school.

Niall started talking about how he wants to become a psychologist and will pursue his studies to University in two years.

“Oh god mate, I just texted my sister about you and she just lost her shit, look at that,” Niall hands him his phone and Harry reads the text saying :  
_HARRY AS IN THE HARRY STYLES, NIALL BRING HIM HOME I – OH ACTULALLY NO THAT WILL BE EMBARRASSING, OH YMGDO NIALL YOU’RE SO LUCKY, FUCK YOU._

They both burst out laughing. Harry knew some people liked him and looked up to him, but not as much as this.

Harry abruptly stops laughing when he sees some of the hockey players that insulted him during the summer walking into the cafeteria. They are three, they both follow the smaller one who still seems to be the leader of the group, probably the captain.

They both make eye contact and the small one quickly looks away and Niall breaks the silence.

“Do you two know each other?”

“Almost went at his friend’s throat this summer, no biggie,” Harry smiled and Niall’s eye went wide.

“Bro, I didn’t think of you as a fighting type,”

“Is it because I’m a figure skater? Doesn’t mean I’m weak,”

“No, that’s not what I meant, sorry. But, yeah hockey players can be cocky and stupid as fuck,” Niall added and Harry rolled his eyes laughing.

“You don’t say,”

“Louis is not that bad though, he’s less cocky than the rest,”

“Who’s Louis?” Harry asks although he doesn’t really care.

“The small one, he’s the captain of the team. Best hands out there man. You could come see a game with me one time if ya want,” Niall proposes.

“Think I’ll pass, hockey is not really my thing. Ask me to go to Disney on Ice and I’ll consider,” He says and they both start laughing.

…

One perk of being a former figure skating coach is that you are certified by Skate Canada and you can be on the ice all by yourself.

Harry and Stacey had agreed to take a day off to relax at the rink and just have fun. Harry knows he should be working much harder than this if he wanted to achieve something this year, but a day of fun is not that bad, right?

“Alright put some music, and if I hear one song by Adele I’m cutting your feet off,” Stacey tells him and he bursts out laughing.

“She’s good, I can’t help it,”

“We’re not here to be depressed man, we’re here to have fun, put some Ariana or Bebe Rexha, I don’t care, just put some beat,” She instructs and Harry plugs his phone and goes on Spotify. He puts his skating playlist on shuffle and Bang Bang by Jessie J starts playing.

They do a quick stroking and then go to the ramp and start stretching.

“So what do we start with?” Harry asks.

“How about the charlotte spiral?” She says smiling at him and he pushes her shoulder playfully.

“You little bitch. You know I can’t do this one, but go ahead miss,” She gives him a cheeky wink and executes herself.

Harry doesn’t say anything before he goes and gets some speed before doing a cantilever leaving Stacey speechless. They both have elements one can do the other can’t.

“Wanna play this game Styles? Let’s go,”

They keep teasing each other until they decided to invent some stupid choreographies with whatever song plays at the moment. They simply just enjoy the moment and have fun like always.

…

Tuesday could easily become Harry’s favorite day because he only has one class, but yet again it’s history and it ends at 5:30pm. What kind of class finishes this late? Besides, he has skating practice that evening so he’ll have to rush to his practice.

“Hello everyone. If you could all please stop talking, thank you,” The teacher, who is wearing the ugliest pair of pants ever, in Harry’s opinion. Flared brown jeans with yellow and blue patterns on it. With a white silk blouse to complete the lot. “As you may know, I do not start the class really on the first meeting. But we will do a little project today. I will give you each a number from one to 9 and it’ll be your team for today” She says as she goes in front of every student and gives them a number.

“Sorry I’m late,” Niall says as he rushes to sit next to Harry.

“Hey man,” Harry greets him and Niall is panting next to him.

“Not a good way to start the semester mister, you’re 6 by the way,” The teacher tells him and she gives Harry the number 7.

“Won’t happen again miss,” Niall smiles and they both sit in silence until she finishes giving everyone their numbers.

“So, I put your numbers all around the class, you’ll be put into groups of 4 and I want you to reunite and on the carton, I want you to write whatever word comes to your mind when you see the ones written on the carton, am I clear?” She asks and few people nod while the rest just look bored. “You may join your team’s spot now,” She instructs and everyone starts moving to find their spot.

Harry finally finds table number 7 and is the second to arrive. He’s met with a small girl with long brown hair.

“Hi, I’m Elena,” She smiles.

“Harry,” He says and he sits down next to her.

Another girl joins them and introduces herself as Bethany. They both seem really nice and Bethany sort of reminds Harry of Stacey.

And then, the last member of their team arrives and if Harry could, he’d pack his shit and leave the class right away.

“Hi, I’m Louis,” Harry recognizes him. Of course, he saw him only a few days ago. Still wanna shove his fist in his face even if he defended him, he’s still friends with homophobes.

“Anyway, let’s do this,” Harry says as the two others girls greet Louis as if he was Prince William. Harry had forgotten hockey players were treated like royalty around here.

“So the first word is ‘Couple’” Bethany says and Harry wonders what the hell does this have to do with history.

“Sex” Louis answers, and of course he would say this.

“Love,” Harry adds not looking at Louis but he knows he’s looking at him.

“I like Louis’ idea” Elena says twirling a piece of her hair with her fingers looking at Louis while Bethany writes the word on the carton.

“Of course,” Harry mumbles under his breath.

“Next one is ‘Child’” Bethany says.

“Play,” Harry says at the same time as Louis says “Poop,” and the two girls start laughing like dumbasses.

“I’m so writing this one,” Bethany laughs and Louis gives Harry a satisfied smirk and he wants to punch it off his face.

Harry just remains quiet for the rest of the project and waits until it’s over so he can finally go to the rink and gets his frustration off into practice.

…

He drives to the arena and when he enters he always passes by the locker room of the hockey player and usually it’s opened because they’re either changing or on the ice for practice, but today it’s closed. Good.

Harry isn’t in the mood to come across any homophobic dude who thinks he’s the shit when he really isn’t.

He walks past the gym and his breath is caught in his throat when he sees a shirtless Louis boxing with someone else who seems to be the same age as him. Louis might be small, but he’s very muscular.

He quickly walks away when he notices he’s been spotted starring and almost runs to his own locker room. Well fuck.

Harry tries to relax through his practice but it doesn’t work, for some reason he cannot erase the image of Louis fighting against the gloves and looking all sweaty and h- god damn it Harry, focus.

“Harry! What the fuck was that? Since when do you pop out a jump?” Annie yells at him from the other side of the rink and he groans as he turns to her and he sees Louis and his friend watching him practice and this just made everything so much worse.

Harry tries his triple loop again and lands on his ass. This is the first time in a while that he isn’t capable of landing his triple loop. This is his easiest jump.  
“Alright, let’s give those a break, spins now. Flying camel,” Annie orders annoyed by his incompetence of the evening.

Harry executes himself knowing Louis is still watching him and it shouldn’t make him as nervous as he is right now. Harry has performed in front of thousands of people, only one irrelevant shouldn’t matter.

He jumps his spin and misses his landing and falls on his side and knocks his face on the ice.

“Harry! Are you okay?” Annie rushes to his side and although Harry is a bit freaked by what just happened, he gets up quickly and groans. This shouldn’t be happening, he is the best skater here, he doesn’t deserve his title if he’s going to fuck up like that in practice.

“I’m fine,” He groans as he and Annie skate to the ramp.

“Jeez H, you’re bleeding,” She lifts his head but he quickly dodges and takes a sip of his water and goes back to another flying camel doing it perfectly this time.

…

“And they say you’re the best skater in the country,” Louis says when Harry gets out of the room.

“Did you honestly wait for me just to annoy me? Please do fuck off,” Harry scoffs and walks past him.

“I saw you watching me train, liked what you saw?” Louis asks and makes Harry stop walking.

“Haha, in your dreams princess,” Harry says turning to face Louis looking him up and down and then turning away again to start walking.

“What the fuck is your problem honestly? You think you’re better than anyone else? Big news honey, no one gives a fuck about you,” Louis says as his voice gets louder.

“Do you think I give a flying fuck about what people think of me? I wouldn’t be where I am today if I cared about people’s opinion and yours is the last one that I would pay attention to,” Harry tries to stay calm but Louis is really pissing him off right now and he’s about to snap.

“Fuck you,” Louis simply responds.

“Yeah you wish,” Harry smirks and Louis groans as he turns away and they both walk away from each other. Thank god they only have one class in common because Harry wouldn’t be able to stand him for more than 3 hours a week.

…

It’s been a week since Harry last saw Louis and it’s been one of the most peaceful week he’s ever lived. Harry doesn’t need immature and rude people in his life. Well, he first would have to give a crap about them, but truth is, the only thing that matters to him right now is the World’s competition that is coming near the end of the season and Harry is really not ready. If he wants a chance to win the World’s, he needs to step up his game and land his goddamn quad.

“Please sit down everyone, we will start the class. Open your book at page 9 and your notes on page 2,” The teacher orders and once again she is dressed in the most obscene dress. It is horrendous for the eye. Some brownish yellow dress covered with cats and feathers, who on earth would, first create this and second, wear it?

“Hey, where’s Louis?” Niall asks after looking around him.

“Why are you asking me this?” Harry asks back. Why would he know or care where Louis is.

“Dunno, maybe he switched his class since it interfered with his practice,” Niall explains while they both open their text books as the teacher asked.

…

Things were going perfectly well knowing that Harry would never have to speak to Louis again since he wasn’t in any of his classes anymore. That was until Thursday morning, PE class.

Niall had texted Harry that he wouldn’t be attending the class since his car broke down and his mom was working and no one could drive him to school and it was too late for Harry to go pick him up.

So Harry was going to PE class without a partner to practice with. This wasn’t so bad itself, it’s when Harry stepped into the class that it went horribly wrong. Louis was sitting there, dressed up in tight shorts and a white tee.

_You picked the worst day to not come… Louis’ in our class now, fuck me._

Harry sent to Niall and his answer was simply a bunch of laughing emojis with a good luck at the end.

“Alright so 2 laps around the gym and then sit on the floor so I can give you guys the instructions for today’s class” The teacher instructs and now that Harry pays attention, he is not the same teacher of last week.

“I’m sorry, not to sound rude but where is Mr. Kinsley?” A guy in the front row asks.

“He didn’t tell you? His wife went into labor and he’s not coming back for the rest of the semester,” The new teacher informs and everyone nods before heading to the gym and start running.

“So today, we practice your serves. If the serve is good, you can exchange the shuttlecock until it falls down. But you must practice your long and short serves. Ok, everyone can meet up with their teammate,” The guy instructs and Harry waits for everyone to find someone until there’s one person left so he can team up with them.

To his very own luck, Louis is the last one standing looking around trying to find someone to team up with. Harry rolls his eyes when they see each other by themselves.  
“Looks like you’re stuck with me for 2 hours,” Louis says with a smug on his face.

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up and follow me,” Harry groans as he goes and try to find a spot so they can practice.

“So, are you practicing tonight?” Louis asks as he serves the shuttlecock and it lands offside.

“I am. Why? You wanna watch me again? Enjoyed it that much uh?” Harry chuckles and serves.

“Please, I’ve got better stuff to do than watch you do fantasies on the ice,” Louis scoffs and hits back.

“Just like last time right?”

“I wasn’t the one drooling over me shirtless,” Louis smiles and misses his shot.

“I wasn’t drooling. You’re not my type anyway,” Harry adds to defend himself. He was definitely not drooling over Louis being sweaty and hitting the gloves with so much force and-

“I’m not gay anyway so it’s not like you would have a shot,” Good. Good, Louis is not gay. Harry can stop thinking about the image now. Nothing could ever happen. Nothing.

“Let’s just focus on this for now on, shall we?” Harry proposes and Louis happily obliges.

…

“Harry finally! I’ve got some amazing news for you!” Annie exclaims as he has barely stepped a foot on the ice. Stacey is already there waiting with Annie.

“Better be good I’m in a shitty mood,” Spending 2 hours with Louis Tomlinson fucking drained him. Louis himself isn’t that bad but him being a hockey player makes him one million times worse.

“You were chosen to be the opening skater at the Legends Game in 2 weeks!” Annie says excited.

“Holy fuck, that’s huge? How many people will there be? Where is it?”

“There’ll be around six thousand people and it’s right here. Also, it pays you three hundred dollars,”

“Are you fucking serious? I’m being paid that much for only one performance?” Harry asks stunned by the amount of money. This was the most he has been paid. Even during shows he wasn’t paid that much.

The most he had gotten was around two hundred at a show he had done in a competition for kids.

Maybe he’ll even get some extra money from Lulu Lemon for wearing their clothes. He might get some new ones too. This is so exciting.

“Ok so we need to work twice as hard now, your short program is far from being presentable,”

“Yeah well I usually have much more time to prepare,” Harry justifies and Stacey widens her eyes towards the bench where they usually go.

“What is he doing here?” She asks and when Harry looks, it’s Louis sat peacefully watching the few skaters on the ice.

“Oh my god,” Harry snorts and shakes his head. So much for having better stuff to do. “Hey do you think I could do my backflip since it’s just a show?” He asks full of hope to Annie. She had always said no even though Harry could do it perfectly every single time. She claims it is too dangerous. True, but he has not hurt himself once.

“Why do I have the feeling that even if I say no, you’re going to find a way to sneak it in anyway?”

“You know me so well,” He smiles at her and he and Stacey both start their warm up.

Harry skates by Louis couple of times but ignores him each time and Louis simply doesn’t seem to leave for some reason.

Harry starts his jumps with the axel continuing with his doubles then triples.

“Styles!” Harry turns his head towards the voice and it is surprisingly Niall.

“Hey mate, what are you doing here?” Niall is right beside Louis but Harry makes sure to ignore him.

“There’s some free skating after your practice with the hockey team, which is why I assume Louis is here,” Niall says turning to Louis and he pretends to be shocked to hear his name but Harry knows better.

“You talking to me?” Louis fake asks which makes Harry scoff.

“Oh please, as if you weren’t listening. Missed me already? Came by earlier to watch me? Pretty desperate babe,” Harry teases him smiling and Louis laughs.

“What can you say, I enjoy you so much watching you act as if any of this is hard,” Oh now he hit a nerve. Harry could take a lot of things, but people saying figure skating is easy isn’t one of them.

“If it’s that easy how about I stay after practice so we can try some stuff together,” Harry challenges him.

“Told you I’m not gay,” Louis smirks playing the idiot and Harry is quite close to lose it to be honest.

“You know what I’m talking about. Unless you don’t want to be proven wrong? I know how you hockey players are quite fragile,”

“Fuck off, I’ll do it. We both stay after the free skating. You and me and you show me your shit and I’ll prove you anyone can do it,”

“Fine by me,” Harry ends up saying and poor Niall being caught up in all of this but he seemed to enjoy this much more than he should’ve.

As Harry leaves to get back to his practice he’s quite sure he heard Niall say he would stay to watch ‘this shit go down’. Whatever, Harry is ready to make Louis suffer.  
Harry notices more and more people arriving at the arena and a lot of them are watching him and the others practice. He decides to give them a little show because let’s face it, Harry loves the attention and especially when it’s to show people how good he is at what he does.

“I’m gonna run my solo,” He tells Annie and she nods telling him to get into position as all of the other skaters stay by the ramp so they don’t get in his way.

Harry decided to pick Let It Go’s cover by The Piano Guys, it’s a mix of Let It Go from Disney and Vivaldi’s Winter, it’s truly beautiful.

As soon as the music starts, he moves to the beat of it and starts his elements. He has to stop a few times because his solo is not entirely done, most of it is, but there are still some stuff that needs to be done.

He does a triple axel instead of his quad because he doesn’t wanna embarrass himself in front of these people and hockey players. Then comes the moment he was waiting for, the backflip.

He does some stroking to gain enough speed and he can hear every gasp as he executes his backflip perfectly and then quickly finishes his solo with a backspin combined with a sit spin.

He’s barely panting when he’s done, it’s his short program so it’s only about two minutes and he’s mostly smiling at the end as he joins Stacey to grab his water bottle.

“You’re such a show off, I can’t believe you,” She laughs and so does he.

…

“You ready?” Louis asks Harry when most people already left.

“The question is, are you?”

“Please, I’ll show you how easy your sport is,” Louis argues back and there’s something hinting in his voice that maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all.  
When they get on the ice, Harry only makes him do some stroking to warm up.

“So, since you’ve got yourself some nasty hockey skates, I won’t make you do any jumps since it’s not fair that we do not possess the same blades,” Harry informs him while planning what he’s going to make him do.

“We’ll start with some simple slalom,” Harry says and he shows him what it is. After about one lap and a half of gaining speed, Harry tells him to do it on one foot as he demonstrates how it’s done.

Harry is much further as Louis is obviously struggling behind him on one foot.

“Alright, well that was quite easy. We’ll stretch and then do the arabesques,” Harry tells him and they both go to the ramp so they can stretch and as Niall said, he really stayed to watch this so did few players of the team.

“Ok, lift up one of your leg, the one you feel the most at ease,” Harry instructs putting himself behind Louis to catch his leg which he lifts barely centimeters from the ice. “God, a bit higher,” Harry orders and Louis does so.

He grabs his leg and lifts it up at ninety degrees and he hears Louis complains about the pain.

“You’re such a pussy, stop crying,” Harry groans and lifts his leg a tiny bit higher by pressing one of his hand to Louis’ back arch.

“Now do it with some speed, I’ll show you,” Harry tells him and Louis brings his leg down and turns around to watch Harry do the arabesque. He lifts his leg much higher than he made Louis lift his.

 _This is easy, I can do it. Basically standing on one leg_. Louis thinks to himself before going to do it.

He barely gains any speed and he’s shaking as he lifts his leg up for about 3 seconds.

“I did it!” He exclaims loudly as he skates back to Harry who is almost laying on the ice laughing.

“You think you did it? Do it again the exact same way, I’ll film you to show you what you just did,” Harry laughs as he takes his phone from the ramp and turns on the camera to film Louis.

He does the exact same thing and once again, he can hear Harry laugh along with all of the people watching, this is fucking humiliating.  
“Look,” Harry lends him his phone so he can watch the short video and he notices that not only he barely has any speed but he lifts his leg barely ten centimeter from the ice and for such a short period.

“Well guess what Curly, not everyone is flexible,” Louis is getting pissed off. What the fuck did he get himself into? The rest of the team would tease him so much after this.  
“Alright then, how about spins? I’ll cut you some slack and let you do a straight one, pretty basic. You just have to spin on yourself, I won’t obligate you to cross your legs,”

“Wow, lucky me,” Louis says bitterly as Harry goes to show him how to do it. Ok, that Louis can do.

“Watch me,” Louis says pretty confident before executing the element.

First try, he is now on his ass. Ok, one more time. Then again and again. He always loses balance while doing it.

“What the fuck, if there’s a trick you have to tell me,” Louis yells annoyed. Not only is he losing his pride but his ass is fucking frozen right now.

“But I thought you could do it without the trick since figure skating is so easy?” Harry smiles at him and Louis is so done. He knows he’s acting like a child but he opens the door and slams it closed and leaves for the locker room leaving Harry standing there a bit stunned but smiling.

“That went well,” He says laughing as the rest of the team leaves either to get home or to see Louis and Niall stays with Harry while he takes off his skates.  
“You didn’t go easy on him,” Niall says.

“Niall, I made him do the easiest things. These are all elements you learn when you start getting your balance. I know 6 year old skaters who can do better than him. I could do all of that when I was 5 years old,” Harry informs him in disbelief that his friend would take Louis’ side.


	3. Chapter 3

Before Harry knows it, it’s already the Legend’s Game and he’s opening the game with his performance.

He and Annie both agreed to change his performance to his Michael Jackson’s program since he remembered it, and it gives a much better show than his current short program.

He arrives to the arena two hours early to have enough time to stretch, and simply get in the mood of it. But especially to not arrive at the same time as fans because he would have a hard time getting to the rooms since the back doors close as soon as fans enter the arena.

Annie arrives while he’s running in the hallways downstairs and drop her purse where his bag is.

“So, how far along are you?” She asks as he removes his headphones.

“I stretched, I was now at running and I still got to visualize my program on the ice and stuff,” He says and she nods letting him continue his run.

Once he’s done, they both go near the ice so he can look exactly where he starts and does his program in his head while visualizing it on the ice.

He puts his glittering leg warmers on along with his white t-shirt and black blazer.

When the lady comes to inform him he’s on in 10 minutes, he puts his skates on and tapes them to make sure they stay laced. He finalizes his look with his glittery glove and his hat.

“You ready?” Annie asks.

“I can’t wait to perform that program again, it’s my favorite,” Harry smiles and he’s right. This performance always gets people so hyped and he loves the dances he’s got in his solo so much.

When he leaves the room, he accidentally bumps into someone which was almost inevitable since there are so many people in the hallway. Players, journalists, coach, employees, name them.

“Sorry,” He apologizes and moves out of the way.

“What the hell are you doing here?” A high pitched voice says and he doesn’t need to look to know who it is. But when he does, he sees Louis with three of his friends all in suits. If Harry didn’t hate Louis so much, he could admit that he kind of looks hot all cleaned up like this.

“You’d happen to know I was asked to perform, what about you?”

“Harry, leave it, c’mon,” Annie insists trying to pull Harry in her way but he doesn’t budge.

“I’m here to watch the game,” Louis says. “And she’s right, you should go, obviously you’re wanted somewhere else,” He smirks and Harry wants to punch it off his face.

“At least, I am wanted here,” He replies and turns his back. “Oh also, Louis?” He says turning back to look at him and his friends.

“What?”

“Try not to get a boner while watching me,” Harry cheekily says before leaving to go near the ramp to meet with a panicked lady worried he wasn’t coming.

Harry absolutely nailed his performance, but yet again, when has he failed anyone ever.

His amazing performance got him a standing ovation. It’s quite funny because people were clapping for him only when he was doing his stroking which was literally nothing. People who don’t know anything about figure skating get impressed over the littlest things, but it’s nice to have people to be impressed whatever you do.

When he comes back in the hallway, there’s a journalist asking for an interview which he nicely accepts. Annie stays close behind making sure he doesn’t swear or says anything that would cause any trouble.

He thanks the journalist and goes back in his locker room to take off his skates and his outfit. He was given a special room to watch the game, so he decided to stay and do so, because why not.

“You don’t need me for anything else now so I’ll just go. If someone asks for an interview, say no. I’ll see you Tuesday, you did really well today. I’m proud of you,” Annie smiles as she gives him a quick hug and leaves the room.

Harry takes advantage of his alone time to put on YOUTH by Troye Sivan. He absolutely loves his new album, he’s in love with it.

He starts taking off his blazer and his shirt to change into a hoodie since it’s much more comfortable and he sweated in his shirt so it’s kind of disgusting to keep it on for a couple of hours.

He hears the door open along with a “What the fuck,” from no one else but Louis Tomlinson himself.

“What are you doing here?” Harry knows he’s shirtless right now and by Louis’ face, he’s going to stay like this for a little longer.

“I wanted to go to the bathroom, I didn’t think anyone was in here,” Louis explains cheeks flushed and it’s the most vulnerable Harry has seen him so far.

“Ok. So, how did you like my performance?” Harry asks smiling and Louis still doesn’t move even when Harry get closer to him.

“I would’ve had to watch it to have an opinion,” Louis swallows still starring at Harry like nothing else in the world exists. And Harry just keeps getting closer but this time, Louis starts trying to keep the space between them.

“Too bad you didn’t watch it, I’m sure you would’ve loved my dance moves and how I touched myself while doing them,” Harry tells him his voice getting lower as he continues to walk towards Louis until he hits the wall and can’t keep a space between them.

“I told you, I’m not gay,” Louis insists and inhales quite sharp when Harry pins him to the wall his hips thrusting against Louis’.

“Really? Wanna explain this princess?” Harry smiles while his thigh brushes against Louis’ boner as Louis groans.

“Get away from me,” Louis pushes him away and goes to the bathroom as he first intended when he walked into that room.

“Gonna be hard peeing with a boner,” Harry yells to make sure Louis can hear through the door as he laughs to himself afterwards.

Louis doesn’t come out even after a good ten minutes so Harry simply picks up his belongings and leaves to go upstairs to watch the game. That was a quite interesting exchange.

…

Things only get worse after this. Niall announces to Harry he won’t be able to be his partner for PE anymore since he has to get a surgery for his knee and he can’t practice any sports for at least 4 months.

At least, Tuesday was an amazing day because Harry finally landed his quad and he almost cried of relief and happiness.

“The sheet will be at the front table, just come and sign yours and your partner’s name then you can go practice,” The teacher says and this is great. Harry is all by himself.

Can’t blame Niall though, it’s not like he did this on purpose. It must suck not doing any physical activity for 4 months. Harry would probably go insane before the date he could his skates back on. He only did it for about a month and was so close to lose it, can’t imagine 4.

“Does everyone have a partner?” The teacher asks, and god, this is so embarrassing but Harry raises his hand because what else is he supposed to do. When he looks around the class, of course the only other person to be by themselves is the famous Louis Tomlinson. Why hasn’t he dropped the class like history.

“Weren’t you with Niall?” Louis asks when he goes to join him to his desk.

“He dropped the class,” Harry groans. What kind of bad luck. What did he do to deserve to spend the rest of the semester teamed up with Louis?

“Oh, well, looks like we’re stuck together,” Louis says as if Harry doesn’t know.

“Although, if you dare miss one class because you’re tired from practice I will literally shove this racket up your ass, you understand?” Harry threatens, half kidding.

“Unlike you, I don’t like things shoved up my ass,” Louis says thinking he’s slick. He looks proud of his comeback by showing a smug.

“Actually,” Harry starts and he gets closer so he can whisper in Louis’ ear, “I’m usually the one doing the fucking,” He whispers and chuckles as he pulls away to see Louis’ terrified face.

“I really did not need to know that. I can just tell you when I’m going to miss because it will most likely happen,”

“Is this your attempt to get my phone number?” Harry raises an eyebrow smirking. God he loves teasing him.

“What the fuck? Get off your high horse. I can just Facebook message you if you want,”

“Fine. I’ll add you after class, but if you comment shit on my stuff I will block you and you’ll need to find another partner to team up with, am I clear?”

“You do realize that if you drop me as a partner, you’ll need to find someone else too?”

“Do fuck off alright? Let’s just do what we are asked to do. As little talk as possible.” And then they’re gone for practice. All of this could go really well or terribly wrong. For some reason, Harry believes the second option is most likely to happen.

…

Annie calls in an emergency practice on Saturday because Harry’s solo still isn’t over and perfect and the first competition is coming up in about a month and a half. Harry needs to be able to run everything and also get into his long program which will be much difficult to work on since it’s almost twice the length of his short program.

As much as the practice goes on, there are people who are entering the arena. And it simply adds up. After about an hour into his practice, there are at least 200 people there watching him which is odd because this is a private practice.

“Who are all of these people? Not from other competitors?” Harry asks worried and panting after running a part of his solo.

“No, there’s a local hockey game after. This was the only time available to practice so I took it. We need it alright? So you’re going to go back and you better jump that quad or I’m making you start all over again until you jump it,” Annie says and Harry simply nods before taking a sip of his water and puts himself in position to start his solo.

He always gets a bit nervous before his quad axel but fortunately, it’s only midway of his solo so he gets over with it pretty quickly and can move on and do his best for the last bit of his performance.

When he finally gets to his quad, he knows he has to jump it, so he does. He lands it what would people think is perfect, but for a figure skater, is very frustrating. He cheated his landing which means he was missing a bit of rotation in it.

He continues his solo a bit frustrated and when he’s finally done with it, he can hear people clapping in the stands which makes him roll his eyes.

“What will it take for you to land your quad perfectly in your solo?” Annie groans as soon as he reaches the ramp.

“If I knew, I’d do it,”

“Just do your quad the way it is in your solo,” Annie orders and Harry does so.

He lands it perfectly which leads to more clapping. God people are so annoying. This is a practice, can they stop.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but your time’s up, you need to leave the ice,” An employee of the arena comes to inform Annie and she simply nods and instructs Harry to leave the ice which he does with a loud groan.

“Oh great,” Harry says as he goes in the hallway and it’s full of hockey players in similar t-shirts and shorts who seems to be stretching.

“Just ignore them, can you do that for once in your life?” Annie asks and Harry laughs before heading to his room to get changed.

He takes off his skates off pretty quickly and Annie leaves so he can get changed and she doesn’t need to be there anymore really. She simply reminds him of his next practice and then she leaves him alone.

He changes into a white shirt and a leather jacket and skinny jeans. Puts his skates in his bag before heading out of the room.

“Stalking me much?” He hears Louis say behind him.

“I would have to give a shit about you to stalk you,” He answers harshly.

“Ouch! Don’t be so rude Styles, you gonna hurt my feelings,” Louis says sarcastically.

“Yeah forgot how fragile you are,”

“Who the fuck pissed in your cereals this morning, you’ve got one hell of a mood,” Louis complains.

“Well if hockey players didn’t steal our ice time, maybe I’d be in a better mood,”

“This game has been planned since august, you staying for the game?” Louis surprisingly asks.

“Why on earth would I stay for your hockey game?”

“Because you’ll get to see what supposedly steals your ice time. You never know, maybe it’s worth it!” Why is he trying to convince him to stay? When has Harry given a fuck about hockey? Oh that’s right, never.

“I don’t even have a ticket,” Harry protests.

“You don’t need one, you’re already in. Just go up the stairs and find a seat that is not taken,”

“You’re lucky I have nothing better to do,”

“You’re actually gonna stay?” Louis says excitingly.

“Calm down man, it’s not that exciting, I’ll text Niall see if he can join me. You better win and not waste my time,” Harry warns and Louis is about to take him seriously until he sees a smile on Harry’s lips.

“We’ll do our best like always. Can’t promise anything,”

“Whatever, I’m getting something to eat,” Harry says taking his bag and starts walking away.

“No good luck?” Louis asks teasing.

“Want a good luck kiss babe?” Harry laughs in Louis’ direction.

“You’re an ass, get away from me,” Louis laughs and Harry leaves to go upstairs and get something to eat.

 **Harry:** im sorta @ the hockey game, wanna come join me?

 **Niall:** Harry Styles at a hockey game, never thought id live long enough to see those words, sure, im on my way

The thing with arenas is that, they only serve junk food, which is nice, but Harry is not supposed to eat that kind of crap. He gets 2 hot dogs and fries anyway. Once won’t kill him, he’ll just have to keep that a secret from Annie and train harder this week.

 **Niall:** Where are you @?

 **Harry:** 210, like in the last rows, im wearing a leather jacket

 **Niall:** just spotted ya, there in a bit

“Hey mate, love the bun,” Niall compliments as soon as he sits next to Harry and steals a fry from him.

“Do that again and I’ll stab your hand,” Harry jokes which makes Niall laugh.

“What on earth convinced you to come here today?”

“I was actually already here for a practice and when I finished, I ran into Louis and he convinced me to stay, sorta,” Harry explains his mouth full of fries which is kind of disgusting.

“Louis uh? You two seem to talk a lot lately and get along much better,”

“What? No way! I still hate his ass with pure passion,” Harry defends himself.

“I’m sure he has a crush on you,” Niall says sure of himself while the music starts getting faster and there’s a countdown and then the players all come on the ice for their warm up.

“He’s not even gay,” Harry adds but louder because of the volume of the music.

“That’s what he says,”

“I did give him a boner the other day,” Harry remembers and laughs out loud to the image.

“YOU WHAT?” Niall shouts.

“He kept eyeing me while I was shirtless so I tried to make a move by getting closer and closer and he never really stopped me, and then I pinned him to the wall and grinded- wait, remind me why I’m giving you all these details?”

“Continue, we were getting to the good part!!” Niall insists and for a second, Harry is not sure wether he’s with his best pal or with Stacey.

“Anyway, I grinded on him and he got a boner so quickly man it was almost embarrassing,” Harry finishes his story and Niall snorts so loud which makes Harry laugh along with him.

…

It takes a while for the game to actually start and it gets really boring to wait so long. How many introductions need to be done and trophies are there to give away.

After a couple more minutes, the national anthem is finally being sung and then the game starts. Niall keeps talking about how our local team is currently the best in the league and the other team absolutely sucks so they should win this game easily.

The local team scores a goal after about 5 minutes and the crowd goes insane but Harry being the snob he is, he stays sat and barely claps.

By the beginning of the third period, it’s 5-0 for the local team and it’d be safe to say they’re going to win this game.

Harry can spot easily Louis on the ice because, first, he’s small, second, he has a C on his jersey and with his number 28, it’s easy to spot him. It also is when he breaks away and he keeps speeding and speeding and does a trick with the puck and shoot it between the goalies legs and scores.

Once again, there’s a roar of the crowd and Harry genuinely claps this time.

“Wow, would that have been smile on your face after Louis scored?” Niall mocks him and Harry just playfully pushes him away while they both laugh.

“Shut up Neil,”

“Hey, that’s not my name Harold,”

Louis is on the ice again after his goal and Harry gotta admit that he’s actually pretty good. He wonders if he’s drafted for the NHL.

Louis has the puck once again, but this time it doesn’t go as well as last time. A player from the other team speeds towards Louis and hits his head with his elbow and a second later, Louis is lying on the ice and seems in a lot of pain.

“Woah, that’s a shitty move,”

“Is there a penalty?” Harry asks Niall lowkey concerned because Louis is still on the ice and even though he doesn’t like the guy much, he still doesn’t want him hurt this much.

“Dude, the guy is getting kicked out and probably suspended, that was literally one of the most illegal move in hockey, it’s so dangerous. I hope Louis doesn’t get a concussion,” Niall explains and Harry nods looking back at Louis on the ice which he has what seems to be the doctor with him and two other players.

…

When Harry gets home, he thinks about messaging Louis asking if he’s alright. He wish he hadn’t gone to the game because he wouldn’t have discovered that he can actually worry about Louis.

“Fuck that,” He whispers to himself picking up his phone and sending a Facebook message to Louis.

 _You alright?_ He sends. He closes his phone and turns on his laptop to watch figure skating videos on Youtube to maybe inspire him and help him finish his long program.

He’s on his third video when his phone buzzes next to him.

_Massive headache, since when do u care?_

_I dont, nvm_ He sends back and this was a terrible idea to message him in the first place.

 _Thanks tho for checking up on me:)_ He receives seconds later which sorta makes him smile and he closes his phone quickly.

…

It was already mid-November which meant mid-session exams. Harry was so tired from studying and practice, it was always the same pattern. Either he came home, he ate and studied or he went to practice. There was barely any day he could really rest.

It was surprising to everyone that neither he nor Louis were dead. They managed to actually tolerate each other and even sometimes throw a laugh there and there.

Niall had gotten his surgery and he’s still using crutches and seemed to be struggling a lot, poor him. But Niall being himself, he somehow found a way to laugh through all of this mess.

After everyone’s exams are over Friday, this guy said he was throwing this massive party at his place and everyone who wanted to come could. Niall insisted to go and begged Harry to go with him for 20 minutes before he finally gave in.

Harry had never been the party type nor has he ever gone to an actual party. He’d had few celebrations for skating but they were just galas, far from being actual parties. The alcohol would be champagne rather than vodka. He’s not sure if this is a good idea, especially that he has a practice the day after and the qualifications for the World Championship are coming at the end of the month and Harry is ready, but he needs everything to be perfect.

The first two positions get to go to the World’s, but he needs to be first. It’s first place or he massively failed. If you don’t have this minding, you’re not a true winner to him. You’re going to war every time you step on the ice and if you’re not there to win, what are you doing.

He’s more determinated than ever to win the World’s. But that’s only in March, so he still has time and he needs to focus on the qualifs right now.

His last exam before the party is economy and he’s quite sure he won’t get a good grade. His current average is around 88% which is quite good, but this exam was a mess. The teacher said he’d put formulas on the board, although they were all formulas they didn’t need, fucking asshole.

He had to learn a pattern which was 2 pages long by heart and summarize it in one page. He swears, his teacher is fucking crazy. They have too much stuff to memorize. Especially that economy is not the most interesting subject in the world.

Harry wonders how Louis is doing with his exams. Wait- why is he thinking about Louis. Who cares if Louis is failing his exams, he’ll just get cut off from playing games. But he has never been which leads to think he’s probably doing great.

When Harry goes to pick Niall up at his house, he notices that he’s not using his crutches.

“You sure it’s smart to not bring them?” Harry asks when Niall sits next to him in the car putting his bag filled with alcohol on the floor.

“If my leg hurts, I’ll just sit down mom,”

“Oh god, don’t call me that,”

“You more of a daddy type?” Niall says and they both instantly snort.

“You did not just say that, let’s just put some music alright,” He proposes to change the subject.

Niall gives him the directions to the guy’s house and they arrive few minutes later. Turns out, the house was in the same neighbourhood. If they’re too drunk to drive, they could just walk back to Niall’s and sleep there.

When they step into the house, it smells like pot and it disgusts Harry. He’s not against it, he just finds it disgusting.

He and Niall both head to the kitchen to mix their drinks and do some shots to start off the party. Although Niall leaves to meet some other people which is fine for Harry. Since he doesn’t drink often, he’s already feeling buzzed after 2 shots and his drink of rum and coke. A little more than buzzed he should admit.

Everything’s a bit slower and he can feel himself getting tired which is what the alcohol does to him.

“Styles! What’cha doing here?” Oh great.

“What do you want Louis?” He groans taking a sip from his second cup. Louis looks absolutely wasted.

“I was wondering what a snob like you was doing at a party? Don’t you have to practice your fantasies?” Louis laughs at him and the rest of his group of friends laugh along with him. What are they doing? Are they like a wolf pack, incapable of not following each other?

“Thought with all of the exams, I could use a night to have fun, is that so hard to believe?”

“Actually yes. All you talk about skating and it’s the only thing that seems to matter to you,” He laughs and does he realize he’s not funny? Probably not.

“You’re no better with your stupid sport,” He bites back at him and Louis quickly loses his smile.

“It’s not a stupid sport. At least people like it and like me,” He says proudly. God, he’s literally the worst person ever.

“Exactly, people only like you because you’re a hockey player, otherwise they’d give no fucks about you,” Harry’s voice raises which brings more attention to them and one of Louis’ friend goes to step in and come at Harry but Louis stops him.

“Maybe you should actually become a hockey player so people would actually like you. Although, you’d have to stop being such a shallow asshole who only looks out for himself and is always me, me, me. If you took a step-back you’d realize there’s not only you in this world and everyone is sick of your bratty atti-“He’s cut off by Harry’s fist on his jaw and everything is just a blur after this.

He can feel a few punches being thrown at him. Next thing he realizes is a bunch of people trying to separate them. He thinks there’s a guy named Liam, he’s also a hockey player.

Liam and a bunch of other people are dragging them somewhere unknown.

“Did you find the rope?” Liam asks to some random guy.

“Yeah, found it in my dad’s garage.”

“What are ya gonna do with that? Tie us together?” Louis snorts.

“We’re going to lock you into this room until you two stop fighting because it’s fucking annoying. So you find a way to get along, or you stay there,” Liam says as he quickly closes the door and ties the doorknob to the stairs ramp so it’s impossible to open the door from the inside.

“They did not just do that,” Harry start panicking a bit and tries to open the door and it’s in fact not possible to do so.

“Of course they did. I would too, have you seen us? We’re horrible,” Louis says sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I need to pee,” Harry says sitting a bit further on the bed.

“Looks like you’re gonna have to hold it in, can you do that princess or you need to be treated like royalty?”

“What the fuck is your problem with me? We hadn’t fought in so long, what got your panties in a twist?” And that fired Louis up.

“Why is it MY fault? You’re the one being an asshole all the time,”

“I didn’t do anything, YOU came at me earlier,” Harry defends himself and the more they argue, the more he feels himself sobering up. He stands up to face Louis and he also stands up and it’s in times like these Harry realizes how small Louis actually is.

“I didn’t mean anything by it! It’s not my fault you can’t take a fucking joke. You always react to my jokes as if you’ve got a stick up your ass. You’re literally one of the most annoying person I know, you seriously need a realit-“This time he isn’t cut off by Harry’s fist, but his lips.

The most surprising part is that Louis doesn’t pull back, he doesn’t kiss back, but he doesn’t push back. What the hell is he doing though? Why on earth would he kiss him?

“What the fuck did you just do?” Louis yells realizing what just happened pushing him as far away as him as possible. “I’m not fucking gay when will you understand that?” He yells even louder like it was even possible.

“You’re not gay or you don’t want to be gay?” Harry questions and he can feel his head pounding from Louis’ yelling.

“Even if I were, you’d be the last person I’d ever date. You’re-“

“I’m the worst person ever I fucking get it alright. Look, let’s make a deal? Since you hate my ass so much, let’s ignore each other unless for PE class. Besides that, whenever we see each other, no talking, no insult, no nothing, deal?” Harry knows if they don’t do this, they’ll just keep fighting. It’s not like they can actually be friends. Louis hates him and will always hate him no matter what he does.

“Fine by me,” Louis extends his hand for Harry to shake which he does.

Harry goes to knock at the door and yell to open it.

“Are you done?” Liam asks opening the door a bit.

“It won’t happen again,” Is the only thing Harry says and Liam removes the rope to let them leave which they both do silently ending with curious looks from the guys from Louis’ team.

Harry goes to find Niall which takes him a couple minutes. He finds him under a girl who’s straddling him and kissing him.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt Niall, but I’m going to leave,”

“I’ll go with you,” Niall insists but Harry shakes his head.

“No, stay, really. I’m going to walk back to your place if that’s okay with you. I need to clear my head,”

“Is everything okay?” Niall asks pushing the girl off of him.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just drunk and I need some fresh air,” Harry insists and Niall hands him the key to his house and tells him to leave it under the carpet so he can come in later.

The walk is painful, not only because he is tired, but because he keeps replaying the kiss in his head. He knows he’s more than screwed when he realizes that he might have liked the kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

When Harry wakes up, he sees Niall on his bed with his phone in his hand.

“Hey,” He says and his voice is so raspy.

“Finally you’re awake! I thought you were dead,” Niall says looking up from his phone which he puts next to him to hand Harry a water bottle.

“God bless you,” He opens it and almost chugs it all.

“So, what happened last night?” Niall asks and it all comes back to Harry’s head. The fight, the kiss, the deal. Fuck.

“Nothing, why do you ask?” He can’t tell anyone about this, especially because he knows Niall will ask if he likes him. He doesn’t! He really doesn’t like Louis, although kissing him wasn’t that bad…

“I heard you and Louis got into this huge fight, then they locked you in this room and when you came out, you were both super weird and both left immediately,” Wait. Louis also left right after?

“We just agreed to never speak to each other to avoid fighting, that’s it,”

“That’s it?” He knows Niall knows something else happened because they wouldn’t have both acted so weird if nothing else had happened, but he can’t say anything.

“Yup,” He says as he stands up to go to the bathroom.

…

Things went by quite quickly after this. They both avoided each other. Whenever they would walk by each other, they would look away. They tried their best to keep their conversations to the minimum in PE class.

Hopefully this was working for Louis, but for Harry, he hadn’t stopped thinking about the kiss. He really shouldn’t. He shouldn’t have kissed Louis. Both because Louis had made it clear he wasn’t into boys and Harry. Also because he knew it would mess with his head.

He needs to get his head cleared up because the qualifications for the World’s are tomorrow and he needs to be ready.

Harry was always lunatic during the past two weeks. His mom would always bring him back to reality so did Stacey at practice and Niall in school. They all knew something was up but none of them really dared to ask.

Louis never showed up to any of practices. It could’ve happened one time where Harry practiced just before Louis’ team but they didn’t cross path. Which was good because it simply would have been awkward.

Harry tries to go to sleep early that night because he needs to wake up quite early for his competition. At least it’s only his short program tomorrow, the long is the day after and it’s during the evening so he’ll have the entire day to get minded.

…

“Got your skates? BOTH of them?” His mom asks and he nods for the twentieth time. She always makes a list to make sure he has everything.

“Did you bring gel?”

“Mom, I’m not putting gel in my hair. I’ll just do a pony tail and put spraynet,” He tells her. No way he’s putting gel in his hair ever again. It’s so disgusting and it feels like you got a crust on your head, it’s so uncomfortable.

When he arrives to the arena, the girl at the stand recognizes him because she didn’t ask his name and immediately told him he was the first of his group to arrive. He is at the local arena and they’re usually skaters who volunteer so it’s quite normal for them to recognize him.

He hands her his CDs and she give him a granola bar and a water bottle. He puts his ID pass around his neck and goes downstairs to drop his bag in the room and get changed.

He puts on his top and then his Lulu Lemon vest over it. He’s in competition so he has to promote the brand.

He goes to the bathroom to tie his hair up in a ponytail and put some spraynet in all of it so he doesn’t have crazy hair.

He takes his skates and goes back upstairs to stretch. He texts Annie letting her know he’s there and she texts him back telling him to meet her in the right corner where there’s the Subway logo.

“You ready?” She asks as soon as she sees him. She’s with Stacey who claims she came to support her best friend which is very nice. She’s competing in a couple hours which Harry will gladly stay to support her also. They have always been so supportive to each other.

It’s hard not to think about Louis right now, especially when the competition is done in their local arena. It’s basically the place they first met.

“Alright, two laps around the arena, then we’ll start stretching,” Annie instructs and Harry does as she says.

He does his usual warm up and when there’s about 20 minutes left before his competition, they all go downstairs so he can put his skates on.

His 10 minutes warm up goes pretty well. He has the time to practice everything and succeeds everything.

While waiting, he walks around in the hallway and listens to Eye of the Tiger to pump himself up and get mentally ready to go to war. He needs to be first.

When the lady calls his name, he can feel the little ball of stress in his stomach like always but he’s mostly excited to perform.

He does his hand ritual with Annie and goes into to position to start his program. He’s mostly nervous about his quad to be honest. He succeeds it in practice, but competition is very different, everything can go wrong.

Which is what happens. Some would think his performance was quasi-perfect, but Harry knows he just lost his first position the second his hand touched the ice when he lost balance after landing his quad axel. He has to keep himself from shouting out of frustration.

When he’s done, he salutes the judges and the crowd and leaves the ice to let the other skater take the ice.

He doesn’t say a word and neither does Annie or Stacey. They know. It’s best no one speaks. It happened once and everyone regretted it. He had thrown his water bottle across the room and shouted out of frustration and things just simply got really awkward that time.

They all go back upstairs but Harry takes his phone and listens music and ignores everyone. His mother also knows it’s better to let him cool down a bit before talking to him.

Maybe Louis was right, he is a brat. Whenever things didn’t go his way he would throw a fit. God, Louis was right all along, he’s such a bad person. How can people stand him?

The results come out not so long after and Harry is in second place and he honestly feels like crying. He’s only 0.50 points from the first place which is held by a random named Zayn Malik. Who the fuck is that? He came out of nowhere.

“Don’t worry, it’s only half a point. You can get it tomorrow, I know you can do it Haz,” Stacey tells him and he nods.

“I am not leaving here with a silver medal, watch me,” And with that, he’s even more pumped for the day after.

He gets congratulations nevertheless from his mom. Who would she be if she didn’t congratulate him even though he didn’t have the expected result?

He thanks her for coming and he tells her he’ll come home after Stacey is done competing and she gets her results.

…

Stacey ends up in third place which she is quite happy. Harry was happy for her, even though, so far, she doesn’t qualify for the World’s, but Stacey says she’s just really happy her performance and that’s all that matter. Harry wishes he could think like her to be honest.

…

The next day, Harry is so excited to show everyone what he’s really capable of. He is ready to take the first place. He can feel it in his gut that he can do it. He will do it.

He registers himself again and finds out he’s the last skater to perform which is a really good thing because judges always give more points to the latest skaters because they can decide what exact position they want them in.

He goes once again to the room to drop his bag and get changed when he hears his name in a voice he hadn’t heard in a while.

“Harry?” Did this really need to happen today?

“Hey,” He says turning around to face Louis.

“You’re competing?” Louis asks as if it weren’t already obvious.

“Yeah,”

“Great,” This is the most awkward conversation Harry has ever had.

Harry starts walking to his room but Louis stops him.

“Wait, I-I wanted to apologize for what I said to you,” Is he serious? Why now? Why after all this time?

“No it’s fine, I did take a step back and you were right, I’m a brat,”

“No, no, no! I didn’t mean it! God, you just frustrated me so much and I wish I could explain but it’s better not alright? Just- I just regretted what I told you. It was uncalled for and you didn’t deserve everything I told you,” This is probably the first time he’s seen Louis so sincere.

“Uh, thanks I guess,” He doesn’t know what to say. This is so weird. He needs to focus on his competition, not Louis.

“Good luck I guess,” Louis gives him half a smile and Harry smiles back at him as a thank you and goes in his room to get changed.

He’s more ready than ever when it’s his time to perform. He starts with his quad so he will get this over with pretty quickly. He has such a great feeling inside of him. Whether it’s because he sort of made things right with Louis or just because it’s the thrill to perform. Anyway, he’s excited.

He lands his quad axel perfectly and he knows everything will be alright right after. That’s exactly what happens. He lands everything perfectly and is smiling so big afterwards.

He hugs Annie really tight as soon as he gets off the ice and she tells him how proud of him she is.

He is super nervous to see the results because he doesn’t know how Zayn did, was his performance as good as his? Does he do more complicated elements that are worth more points? The stress is eating him alive.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he sees he’s got a Facebook message from Louis.

 _Congrats, you were good._ He reads and he’s quite shocked. Not only that he messaged him, but that he stayed to watch him.

 _Thanks, kinda nervous ‘bout the results…_ He sends, and as he sends it he wonders, why is he telling him this?

 _It’ll be fine, Im sure of it:)_ Ok, that shouldn’t have made Harry smile like it did.

“HARRY! YOU’RE IN FIRST PLACE,” Stacey shouts bringing him back to reality. He almost drops his phone as he stands up quickly to hug her really tight.

He goes to see the results himself and sees his name in the first place.

  1. **Harry Styles 210,78 points**
  2. **Zayn Malik 208,34 points**
  3. **Jacob Waltz 198,09 points**



Thank god only the two first qualify for the World’s because 198 points is quite embarrassing. But 210 points is still not enough to win the World’s though. He's gonna have to work even harder from now on. No more parties, no more drinking, no more anything other than studying and skating.

 _I might be in first place and gonna rep the US at the Worlds_ He sends Louis without really thinking. Well, Louis messaged him first about his competition, he deserves to know.

_The worlds???? I didnt knw u were this big!!!!_

“What’cha smiling at Styles?” Stacey asks.

Harry’s mom went home because it’s always way too long before they hand the medals and she has seen it a hundred times so Harry told her to go home and get some rest. Although, Stacey also had to stay since she’s in third place. She still gets her medal but isn’t going to the World’s with him.

“Nothing,” He says biting back his smile.

 _Told ya im the best;)_ Okay, maybe the winky face wasn’t necessary or the whole message wasn’t.

 _Gunna have to get myself an autograph then_ What are they doing?

“Is it a potential boyfriend?” She insists.

“Stacey, fuck off will you,”

“Ooh, hit a nerve didn’t I?” She smiles but stop buggering him.

This might be one of the best day of Harry’s life.

…

The week after gets a bit weird between Louis and Harry. Harry would’ve thought they might have been on a step for recovery, but Louis still ignores him. If not more than before the competition which is odd.

They have their badminton tournament Thursday and Harry has to miss skating practice to be there which is completely ridiculous. But the teacher said that if he missed, he would fail him. He almost pulled the ‘Do you know who I am?’ but he knew he would embarrass himself because no one cares about him here.

Harry messages Louis quickly asking if he’s still coming to the tournament to make sure he won’t go there by himself and Louis tells him he is going. At least he won’t be able to ignore him there.

Although, when comes the day of the tournament, everyone is registered and arrived except for two people. Those two including Louis.

Harry thinks that maybe he got caught up somewhere and he’ll be late or something.

“Styles, where the hell is Tomlinson?” The PE teacher asks him after everyone’s registered except two people.

“How the hell should I know? He told me he’d come but are we really surprised he didn’t show up?”

“Drop the attitude, you’re gonna team up with Cindy for the tournament since her partner didn’t show up either,” The teacher says as he point to the small girl sitting on the bench by herself.

She is gorgeous. She has long black hair with a dark skin and a very sharp jawline, which is very surprising. He has never seen a female with such a jawline.

“Hey, I’m Harry, guess we’re going to play together tonight,” He smiles at her as he sits next to her on the bench.

“Apparently some people don’t value their grades as much as we do, it fucking sucks,” She says which makes Harry chuckle a little.

“You tell me, did your partner also told you they were coming?”

“Yep, think she’s been avoiding me because she found out I’m bi,” She blurs out and Harry hopes he didn’t hear that right.

“What the fuck is her problem? Well, now, not only do you get a better player as a partner, but you also get a better person,” He says trying to lighten up the mood a little.

“So how many games do you think we’re going to lose, because I fucking suck,” She laughs and they stand up to see on what court they’re playing and against whom.

“Let’s be positive and say we’re going to win them all okay?” Harry proposes as they walk to their court to see they’re against two guys.

“You obviously have never seen me play,” She says as they decide who is going to serve first and it ends up being the other team.

When they hit the shuttlecock in Cindy’s direction, she swings in the void.

“Ok, now I get what you were saying,” Harry says laughing taking the shuttlecock and hitting it on the other side so they can serve again.

“Let’s just have fun right? We can lose while laughing, let’s do that,” Cindy laughs as Harry prepares to receive the serve from the other team.

They end up losing every single game, but they had so much fun. Cindy somehow found a way to fall on the floor and it took her five minutes before she got up because she kept laughing too much. Harry was bent in half from laughing too much.

She also hit Harry’s head twice and his leg once with the shuttlecock trying to serve. Let’s say, she wasn’t lying when she said she was bad and they should just laugh it off instead of taking this all seriously.

“Thank you for tonight, really. It was so much fun and I never though coming here tonight would’ve been enjoyable so thank you,” She tells him before they both head off to their respective locker room.

“It was really fun and you know what, how about we stay a team? For the rest of the semester we practice together during class, giving our partners a taste of their own medicine,”

“You’d do that?” She says and the way her face lights up kinda makes Harry’s stomach turn. She must really feel uncomfortable with her other partner.

“Of course, I mean we had fun and we seem to both have partners who hate us and who we also hate so why not?” He insists and she smiles and jumps in his arms.

“Thank you so much Harry,” She says pulling out of the hug. “I already have to deal with my family, I thought school would be safer but I had to get the one homophobic person in the class, so honestly, thank you so much,” And that definitely hurts Harry.

“I’m sorry. I truly am sorry. I don’t know what you live with your family but if it’s worse than a homophobic person I don’t wanna imagine. You know what? Give me your phone,” He presents his hand waiting for her to put her phone in his hand. She takes it out of her bag and unlocks it before she gives it to him.

He goes into her contacts to add a new one under his name. He puts his phone number, saves it and gives the phone back to her.

“In case you ever need to talk or anything. At any hour, you can always text or call me,” Harry tells her looking her straight in the eyes and she simply nods thanking him again before heading to the locker room.

…

Harry finally gets his history and psychology exam results back to find out he got 93% and 96% which is really good. He has such little social life that he barely does anything else than study and skate.

He must thank his mom for forcing him to go back to school because, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, he kind of enjoys his classes. Economy is a real pain in the ass, but the rest is not that bad in the end.

He and Louis cross path at the arena that evening. Harry was going to talk to him and ask why he didn’t show up at the tournament, but Louis pretended to not see him and simply walked past him making sure to keep the conversation going with his mates.

To say Harry was angry at him was the least you could say. He had done nothing wrong to piss Louis off. They seemed absolutely fine after his competition, but apparently that was too good to be true.

Then comes PE class. Cindy texted Harry to make sure they were still going to be partners and he hadn’t changed his mind. Of course he hadn’t, for once this class would actually be enjoyable and wouldn’t be scared to say the wrong thing that would cause a fight.

When he gets to class, he sees Louis is not there. Shocking. But he joins Cindy and they start warming up together which leads to a lot of missed shots and a lot of laughs.

The class passes by very quickly and Harry feels like he has abs from all that laughing. It’s only when he gets to the locker room that he sees Louis. Was he late to class and he simply didn’t see him? Whatever.

He ignores him and minds his own business.

“So what did I do now?” Louis asks and Harry lifts his head up to see if he’s talking to him.

“Are you talking to me?” Harry asks looking around to the two other guys in the room.

“Who else?” Louis says as if it’s obvious.

“Well you’ve been ignoring my ass for a couple weeks now so I could ask you the very same thing. Why do you assume you did something? It’s not like I was the one avoiding you like the plague,” He explains putting his pants on as Louis stares at him already changed.

“I wasn’t avoiding you,”

“I asked you if you were coming last week and you told me yes, then you fucking bailed on me,” Harry raises his voice which makes things very awkward considering there are still other people in the room. Although they seem to get the message since they pack their belongings quickly and leave the room without a word.

“I had a last minute meeting with my coach. I explained the teacher and he understood,”

“Of course he did,” Harry scoffs putting on his shirt angrily.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Louis asks raising his voice also.

“You call me a fucking brat and yet you get to miss a fucking tournament for a fucking meeting and you didn’t even tell me. A tournament to which I was obligated to go and miss practice. Practice which I fucking need because I am going to the World’s Championship must I remind you,” He is yelling by the end of his statement and Louis is just standing in front of him stunned by what he just said.

“Look, I wish it was easy and that I could explain but I just can’t alright? Just fucking move on, please,” Louis insists and Harry just scoffs and picks his bag to leave.

“Before I leave, you don’t ever fucking get to judge me nor talk to me. I want you to stay the fuck away from me, for good. No messaging no anything, fuck off,” Harry spits before heading to the door and as he grabs the knob to open it, Louis mumbles something.

“What was that?” He surely heard wrong.

“Nothing, just leave please,”

“No, you said something, say it,” Harry insists. Although what he thinks he heard quite makes him feel achieved somehow.

“I said I think I might like you, there, happy?” Louis is almost on the verge of tears which Harry doesn’t quite understand.

“It’s okay you know. To not hate me,” Harry says and that might have been the gentlest way he has spoken to Louis.

“No, you don’t get it,” Louis says and that’s when everything inside Harry collapses.

“Oh,” He actually has to sit down on the bench.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Louis sits down too in front of Harry.

“No, no, it’s fine really. It’s just that I genuinely never expected this to happen,” He looks at him straight in the eyes and Louis looks so small right now. Whenever he drops his dumb attitude, he looks so soft and little.

“Me the first. I don’t want this, but-“

“Don’t fight it. Please,” Harry cuts him off and what the hell did he just say. Why did he just say that? Sure he liked the kiss but Louis has the worst attitude on the planet, he won’t be able to like him the way Louis wants him to. What has he done?

“That’s what I was going to say, I can’t. I’ve tried so hard to fight it. I kept having this feeling inside of me whenever we were together. I keep saying I’m not gay, which is true, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in males. I had never really been interested in something with a man before though, but you kept igniting this fire inside of me and there was nothing I could do about it. That time you gave me a boner, I hated myself so much for it. I know it’s not wrong being who I am, but being in the team with homophobic people, sometimes it gets to your head. And the kiss. That fucking kiss. That just proved to me that I couldn’t fight it even if I tried as hard as I could. I tried to avoid you so many times to see if it would work, but all I could think about was you. I just couldn’t get you off my mind. I hated it,” Wow. You’d think that in ten minutes it’d be impossible to go from yelling at each other to confess you like each other, but it is possible.

“Look, I know we have already made a deal we wouldn’t speak to each other, which didn’t work out really well. How about we make a deal and try to be friends before rushing into this?” Harry is praying to god Louis will accept because he really wouldn’t be able to jump into romance. Especially with Louis.

“Okay,” Louis agrees and Harry simply nods at him. And things just got awkward. They’re both standing there not knowing what to do until Louis wraps his arms around Harry’s waist and Harry wraps his around Louis’ body.

“Thank you for not freaking out,” Louis says quietly as he pulls out of the hug. Harry’s mind is still running. He might look very calm on the outside, but on the inside, he is in fact freaking out.

“No problem,” He says nonetheless as he picks his bags up and leaves the locker room for real. He was internally freaking out because what the _fuck_ had just happened?


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey did you start the history project?” Niall asks as they sit in the crowded cafeteria. Harry absolutely hates sitting in a room full of people he doesn’t know. Especially when it’s dirty. There are left overs of food all over the table, it’s disgusting.

“Yeah, I mean, I got all my information but I’m not the best in drawings and shit,” They have to look for information about a random town and make a sign with some calculus about the population, a good summary is basically a project that you’d rather walk across the country instead of doing this.

“I don’t understand how to calculate the average age of the town, can you help me?” Niall asks taking out his notebook from his bag. “Every time I try, it gives me some fucked up number,” He says opening up his book to a page full of calculus.

“Tell me how you do it,” Harry says turning Niall’s notebook so they both can see.

“Well I add all the ages together then divide them by the number of age that I add,” Niall says trying it again but it still doesn’t work and Harry starts laughing.

“Niall, have you ever heard of priorities of operations?” Harry laughs taking Niall’s calculator and do the count to which he gets the right result.

“What the fuck did you do? How did you do it? I don’t remember this priorities of shit,” Niall takes back his calculator and waits for Harry to explain but they get interrupted by someone standing next to their table.

“Hey Harry, uh I was wondering if uh,” Louis starts and he looks so damn nervous. “I, uh well, we have a game tonight and I was wondering if you would like to come?” Harry can’t help but smile. Louis looks so nervous right now and he looks really cute this way. The idea of Louis being nervous to talk to Harry makes him feel some type of way.

“I’d love to come see you,” Harry tells him and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Louis smile bigger than he is right now.

“Okay, good, thank you. I mean, good, uh I’ll have tickets waiting for you at the reception, just tell them your name and they’ll give them to you. There’ll be one for you too if you want to go,” He says looking at Niall and he seems a bit confused at the exchange because he doesn’t know what happened yesterday.

“Alright, thanks mate,” Niall says still confused but doesn’t ask questions yet.

“Thanks Louis, see you tonight,” Harry smiles at him and Louis nods before leaving.

“Okay, what the fuck just happened? Did I just see Louis Tomlinson being nervous to invite you to his hockey game?” Niall asks in disbelief.

“Didn’t you want to know how to calculate the average age of a town?” Harry asks trying to change the subject.

“That was a nice try, I give that half a star out of five, but why on earth did Louis ask you to go to his game, and since when do you go to hockey games?”

“I went that one time,” Harry justifies ignoring his question once again.

“Harry, since when?”

“I’m not going to give you any details, but Louis admitted that he has a thing for me,” He says lowering his voice so no one else can hear although he’s in a loud cafeteria, unless he shouts, no one would hear him.

“He what? You’ve got to be kidding me? You didn’t fall for it did you?” Niall asks seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“Harry, hockey players have the worst reputation. They will tell you anything to get to fuck you,”

“I do know that, but do you think Louis would really come out to me and not tell anyone else just to fuck me? And I told him we’d only try to be friends first and he was totally okay with this,” Harry explains.

“Yeah I guess, but still, be careful, he’s still a hockey player and the things we hear man,” That scares him a bit. He’s heard some stuff too, but it wasn’t so bad. Just some guy saying he was going to study in the basement but would sneak in a girl and they’d be having sex instead, which isn’t that bad.

“There’s one guy who only messages girls saying ‘wanna fuck?’ and does whoever says yes. Two guys had a threesome with a girl and filmed it without her consent. This one is the most disgusting, these two guys made a bet on who would fuck a girl first and one of them pretended to be head over heels for the girl and when he finally fucked her, he left her there, told everyone and got $100 from each guys who he made the bet with. This is not everything I’ve heard, but mostly the most disgusting,” By the end of this story, Harry feels really sick. He feels as if someone had a hand around his heart and was about to rip it out. Who on earth would treat people this way? He knew hockey players had bad reputation but this was a whole new level of disgusting.

“Have you ever heard anything about Louis?” Harry dares ask and he automatically regrets it being afraid of the answer he might get.

“Well, he fucked a girl or two at the beginning of the semester, but that’s all I heard,” Niall says and Harry is automatically relived. Sort of. Maybe he wanted a reason to not get invested in this friendship whatsoever.

“Can I ask you a question?” Niall asks.

“Go ahead,” Harry says. Unless he gives Niall all the answers he wants to, he won’t drop the damn subject.

“Are you really willing to give him a chance at friendship and even more than that?” Damn it Niall.

“Honestly, I have no idea. He’s Louis Tomlinson for fuck sake. He’s loved for what I hate the most in people. He has barely ever proven to me he’s more than an asshole but somehow the little moments we’ve spent together not fighting were amazing. I’ve found myself wanting to spend more time with him and laugh with him about stupid shit. He has given me no reason to ever trust him with my heart, none. I don’t want him to get his hopes up about this whole friendship to relationship thing, but god Niall you should’ve seen him when he told me he liked me. This is the Louis I want to be friends with. If he’s willing to give up his asshole reputation, I could definitely give him a chance, but god knows that no one gets through me easily,” By the end of this, Harry is just more confused than ever.

He wants to give him a chance, but he’s so terrified at the idea of giving himself up to someone else. To allow someone to make his heart beat faster but then along the way allow this same person to do anything they want with his heart. He’s not sure he’s ready for this. He has never done it before. He had had two people genuinely interested in him before and he backed out right away. He can’t do relationships.

“Don’t lead him on though alright?” Niall asks and Harry simply nods before they go back to calculus.

…

There are much more people at this game than Harry thought. So Louis said to go to the reception and say his name? Is that right?

“Where the fuck is the reception?” Harry asks Niall as they try to walk through the insane amount of people in the entrance.

“I think it’s there,” He says going into some direction and Harry just follows him.

“Hi, I’m Harry Styles there are supposed to be two tickets for me?” He says to the employee wearing a work shirt with the emblem of the team on it.

“Let me look in here,” The guy says and it takes a couple of seconds before he hands Harry a pair of tickets.

Louis had messaged Harry earlier asking to wait for him at the end of the game. Hopefully the team will win because Harry has a feeling that when he loses, he gets in a bad mood.

Niall had told him that he certainly wouldn’t act as a third wheel and would go home right after the game. And spending time alone with Louis definitely didn’t make Harry nervous, really, it doesn’t. Almost doesn’t.

When they finally arrive to their seat, after being held up by too many people who apparently have no idea they’re not alone on this planet, they sit and the view isn’t so bad. They’re in a corner of the arena and they can see the entire ice which is pretty nice.

There aren’t too many people in the section. Most people are wearing jerseys of the local team and those people include Niall. Niall who annoyed Harry during the whole ride to the arena to try and convince him to buy a shirt with Tomlinson on the back but Harry threatened to grab the wheel and drive them off the road if he continued.

Niall is still healing from his surgery, he’s walking pretty normally now but he still has some struggles with stairs which is both funny and sad to watch because he looks like he’s in pain but he looks like a robot.

The game starts few minutes after they sit and everyone gets so into the game. Niall is bouncing his damn leg next him and he’s literally ready to fucking break it in half if he doesn’t stop. There are barely 5 minutes played and everyone seems so tensed around him it’s so insane.

He knew people in the country were really obsessed with hockey and that it’s the national sport, but it’s just a game. Which is pretty funny because that’s what his mom tells him about skating, it’s just a sport. Okay, maybe he understands these people.

“Why are you so damn nervous, stop shaking your leg,” Harry groans when there’s an off-side.

“Sorry, but if they win this game they’ll be in the number one team in the league,” Niall says excited and Harry rolls his eyes at him.

He rests his back against the back of the chair and watches the rest of the game this way. He claps when the local team scores, which is quite often, and that’s it. Hockey games are quite boring to him, but the crowd was the funniest part of the night. The roar when the team would score is absolutely insane.

Louis got 2 assists, or at least that’s what Niall told him and some random guy who barely plays did a hat trick and people were throwing their cap on the ice. Why? Those are expensive, why would people do that? What do they do with those?

So after the game is done and Louis’ team won, Niall leaves and Harry waits for Louis where he told him to do so which is basically in the entrance.

There are more people than he expected. He didn’t think this many people would wait for players after their games. There are at least fifty people in here waiting for players.

Louis comes out first looking freshly showered and Harry must admit he looks really pretty with his messy wet fringe.

He quickly spots him and joins him near the door.

“Hey, thanks for waiting for me. Do you wanna go to McDonald’s? I’m starving,” Louis asks.

“I already ate fast food that time I stayed for your game,”

“Wasn’t that like a month ago or something?” Louis laughs not thinking he’s actually being serious.

“I’m going to the Worlds Championship. I need to be at my best,” Harry justifies himself. When he looks around, he sees that more players have come out of the room to join other people waiting for them. Some of them seem to be with friends and some are taking pictures with fans.

“You can always eat a salad,”

“Their salads contain more calories than the sandwiches. We can still go, maybe I can steal fries from your plate,” He says smiling like a child.

“You do that and you’re dead,” Louis warns smiling himself and they both start laughing.

“Tomlinson, why don’t you introduce us to your girlfriend?” Some guy who seems to be a player says. He’s much taller and broader than Louis but about the same height as Harry.

“My name is Harry and I actually identify as a male,” Harry says stepping in to not cause a fight because this is exactly what that person wants.

“Don’t mind him Harry, he’ll say anything to get to you,” Louis says turning back to face Harry.

“But maybe I do mind you Tomlinson,” The guy insists and he’s so damn annoying.

“Let’s go Harry,” Louis says grabbing Harry’s arm gently and leading them to the door.

“Maybe if you stopped hanging out with girlies you’d stop playing like one,” And he hit a nerve. Louis is only touching Harry’s arm with his hand and somehow he can feel Louis’ entire body tense. As long as Louis doesn’t get into a physical fight, they should be good. He lets go of Harry’s arm to give his full attention to the guy in front of him.

“Look Samson, just because you played one good game doesn’t mean you get to criticize other player’s game,” Louis might be small, but he is kinda scary when he is angry. Although Harry has seen him much angrier and at him.

This seems so long ago. To think they were sworn enemies not so long ago, but it feels like forever ago.

“If you scored goals I wouldn’t have to criticize you,” The guy, who Harry isn’t sure if Samson is his name or his last name, says.

“I’ve scored more goals this season than you’ve played games. So next time the coach leaves you in the stands instead of making you play, make sure to watch my game very carefully. Let’s go Harry,” Harry holds himself back from laughing. The guy is left speechless as they leave together and walk to Louis’ car.

“You didn’t have to do that, thank you,” Harry says when they step outside.

“He had it coming,” Louis says and Harry can still feel him tense from the exchange.

“It’s not the first time you do it though,” He mentions remembering during the summer when the Samson guy dropped the F word on Harry and Louis told him to shut the fuck up.

“I know, but I can’t stand homophobia around me,”

“Me neither, I don’t know why athletes are so against gay people,” Harry says as they both get in the car after Louis unlocked the doors.

“I don’t know if they think we pop boners as soon as we see a bit of skin but… On my part, you at least gotta be attractive,” Louis says plugging his phone on to put on music.

“Thank you,” Harry smiles as Louis decides on Hedley’s recent album.

“What?”

“You said, for you, to get a boner, the other person has to be attractive. Remember that time I gave you one?” Harry smiles very satisfied of how Louis basically indirectly told him he was attractive.

“No I don’t” He lies as he starts to drive heading out of the parking lot.

“Looks like you need a reminder,” Harry says putting his hand on Louis’ thigh dragging it very close to his crotch.

“Get your hands off me while I’m driving,” Louis groans taking Harry’s hand off his thigh.

“Only when you’re driving uh?” Harry teases him a little bit while Louis tries to concentrate on the road to not kill them in a car accident.

“Shut up Styles,” Louis groans but when Harry looks at him, he has a small smile on his lips which also makes him smile.

The rest of the drive is made in a comfortable silence as they both listen to the songs playing. It’s not long until they’re driving in the parking lot of McDonald’s.

They get inside to notice there are barely anyone inside which is odd considering this place is always crowded regardless of the hour.

“Hi, how can I help you?” The girl behind the register smiles at Louis and Harry.

“Hello, I’ll have a bigmac combo with a Dr Pepper please,” Louis orders and Harry’s mind shifts to what other big things Louis can fit in his mouth before he’s quickly brought back to Earth by Louis himself. “Styles, if you want anything it’s now or never,”

“McDonald’s isn’t appropriate as a first date,” Harry cheekily smiles as Louis rolls his eyes also smiling. “But no thank you,”

It isn’t long until Louis gets his meal and they sit at a table next to the window and Louis starts eating. Harry almost wants to cry just looking at what Louis is eating. He wished he could also eat it, but it would take him a week of intense training to stop feeling guilty about it.

Although, Harry still allows himself to eat a few fries and steals them one by one in Louis’ cabaret.

“Mate, if you wanted fries, all you had to do was ask when I asked you,” Louis groans pulling his food closer to him and pretends to protect it with his arms making Harry laugh.

“First you bring me in a McDonald’s as a date then you ‘mate’ me, this isn’t going well,” Harry says smiling trying to steal some fries from Louis but he pretend to bite his hand making Harry laugh.

“You made this into a date, I didn’t. I thought you wanted us to be just friends first,” Louis points out smiling at Harry as he keeps eating his food.

“You’re right. Although, I’m still going to steal fries from your plate,” He says stealing one. “Mmh, tastes much better than if I had my own,”

“Asshole,” Louis groans but deep down, it doesn’t really bother him that Harry steals his food.

“How can you eat all this crap and still be in such a shape?” Harry asks.

“You talk as if you’re not in shape. But I work out three times a week and that’s besides hockey practice,” Louis says finishing his burger.

“And people around me think I’m insane,” Harry laughs thinking of how often his mother tells him that he’s practicing too much and he should take some time off.

“I have to train non-stop to be the best,” Louis says mouthful of fries which makes Harry chuckle.

“Are you drafted?” Harry asks which seems to surprise Louis.

“How do you know about the drafting?”

“I hate hockey players but I’m not clueless. Besides, my step-father is a huge fan,”

“Oh, but yeah, I got drafted by Dallas in first round. They told me I’d play with them next year because my current team has a chance to win the cup and they don’t want to keep me from this opportunity at the moment,” Louis explains and Harry vaguely remembers Robin talking about how they were building themselves a huge team for the cup and how they got some really great players.

“That’s really nice,”

“Yeah, well, I went to the camp last summer and when they met me to tell me they were letting me go, I almost cried,” Louis admits laughing a bit. Louis really thought he had impressed them and he had. But he understood their decision when they explained why they were letting him go back home.

“Louis Tomlinson crying. I would’ve paid to see this. But you weren’t here last year, were you?”

“No, I got traded here when we got eliminated last season. I was announced I got traded when we finished our last game. It was to be expected. We were going to lose so many good players. A lot of them were either going to the American league or they were just too old to play in the junior league,” Louis explains and Harry barely understands anything. He doesn’t know what the American league is or what the age rule is for the junior league.

“I’ve never been to Dallas, how is it?” Harry asks as Louis cleans up his mess a bit and puts his cabaret on the table next to him.

“It’s nice, nothing spectacular. I mean, it’s no LA, but it’s really nice. Also, there’s this restaurant called S&D Oyster Company, I absolutely fell in love with it. You have to try it one day,”

“I guess when you’ll be playing in the NHL I’ll have to go and see you,”

“How supportive of you,” Louis smiles thinking of Harry actually going to see him play one day in Dallas. It’d be so amazing.

“That is obviously if I can clear my busy schedule,” Harry tries to sound serious but ends up doing a really poor job at it as he snorts making Louis burst out laughing himself.

“Oh yeah, I forgot you were such a highly requested superstar,” Louis mocks him even though he knows Harry is, in fact, required at some events to perform which is quite cool.

“I am, I mean I do get paid to attend events,” He justifies Louis’ thought.

“Speaking of events, when are the World’s?”

“In March and that leaves me so little time to get fully ready,” Harry groans as he thinks of how many extra hours he’s going to have to do to get his programs perfect.

“That’s in about four months, you’ve got plenty of time,” Louis says but it sounds more like a question.

“But I need to land my quad perfectly in my routine so I can add another one if I want to win,” Harry justifies knowing Louis probably didn’t understand anything of what he just said.

“It’s funny how we both hate each other, but the one thing we both breathe for, is to be the best,”

“Hated. As in past tense. We don’t hate each other anymore,” Harry smiles at him with a small blush on his cheeks.

“Okay, true. Still, you should see me after we lose a game, it’s not pretty,” Louis laughs remembering of that time he almost punched someone because he criticized the way he played during the game saying he was lazy. It took about 2 seconds for one of his teammates to drag him outside before it got out of control and Louis would get in trouble.

“If you had seen me after my first performance at the qualifications. There’s a rule within my entourage that you do not speak to me after a bad performance or I snap. Guess this is my bratty side,” Harry shrugs not embarrassed of this side of him. His mother has told him he needs a change of attitude plenty of times, but he’s never done anything about it. He gets really upset after a bad performance and it makes him very irritable.

“More like bratty is your natural self and being nice is a side of your personality,” Louis laughs making Harry flip him off hiding a smile himself.

“Fuck off Tomlinson,” He groans as he checks the time on his phone. “Fuck, it’s getting really late. I have practice tomorrow morning,” Harry says getting up as Louis grabs his cabaret to empty the empty boxes.

…

“So…” Stacey starts saying in the room while they put their skates on.

“So… what?” It’s way too early for Harry to play guess who and guess what.

“You’re really going to pretend like nothing happened yesterday?” She says smiling. She knows. What the fuck.

“Who told you?” Harry asks as he finishes tapping his skates so they don’t untie during practice.

“Niall,” She says also tapping her skates.

“What? Since when do you two talk?” Harry’s a bit confused right now. He’s never seen them really engage a conversation. When did this happen?

“Louis isn’t the only one who seems to have a crush on a figure skater,” She raises her eyebrows at him and he hates that look.

“Louis and I are just friends,”

“Sure you are babe,” She chuckles searching for her gloves in her bag as Harry walks to the sink to fill up his water bottle.

“How come none of you told me about this?” He says trying to change the subject.

“How come I heard about you and Louis from Niall?” She says back and yikes.

“I guess that’s fair. We should get going before Annie says we’re late,” Which will probably happen anyway.

They get on the ice and see Annie with someone else that they’ve never seen before.

“Finally, I thought you guys weren’t coming,” Annie says a bit annoyed and Harry turns to look at the clock.

“We’re right on time,” He justifies.

“Whatever, as you can see, no one else is here. We got the ice for ourselves and Igor. He will recreate your choreographies to make them harder so you can get more points,” Annie says and both Harry and Stacey shake Igor’s hand.

Turns out Igor is fucking insane and puts moves in Harry’s choreography that he could’ve never thought of. He’s insane, but in the right way. The originality of his routines will get him so much more points and he will take all of them.

Igor gives him some advices on pirouettes, how to spin faster, how to stay stable. Also with his jumps. Igor said he believed in Harry enough to put another quad in his program and that by the World’s he should be able to do both his quads perfectly.

He re-did both programs of Stacey also and also gave her some advice. Although she’ll need them much more next year since for the rest of the year she’ll only be doing shows and not competitions.

…

Harry’s sitting in the living room with his mom watching a cooking TV show when his phone beeps alerting him he’s gotten a new Facebook message.

 _Dyou wanna study for the psychology final?_ Louis sent.

 _It’s in 2 weeks_ He replies.

 _I dont have a 93% average by studying 3 days before my exams_ Louis replies and Harry can almost hear his voice in his head scolding him.

_Youre such a nerd_

_Besides, this would be the last time we hang out for a while, mleavin for hockey_ Louis sends back and they don’t see each other that often, but now that he knows Louis won’t be there, Harry wants to see him even more.

_How am i gonna survive that long without u?_

_Its only a week. And you wont see a difference since u dropped me as a badminton partner, loser_ Louis sends which makes Harry laugh and his mother looks at him weirdly.

“What’s funny?” His mother asks.

“Nothing, Stacey is sending me funny pictures,” He doesn’t know why he feels the need to lie to her about Louis but he does anyway. The least people who know, the least people he will have to tell if this doesn’t work out.

 _After u bailed on me, asshole_ He send Louis.

_Gotta admit i couldve warned u, anyway, up for it?_

_Yup, ur place or mine?_

_Mine, gimme ur # and I’ll text u my address_ Louis sends which, for some reason, makes Harry quite nervous. They’re actually going to hang out, alone. Studying. They’re going to study. Yes.

He sends him his phone number and few seconds later he receives a text message of an address telling him to get there whenever he’s ready.

He puts on some skinny jeans and a tshirt of Queen.

“Where are you going?” His mom asks him while he puts his notebook and psychology book in his bag.

“Studying at a friend’s” He mumbles bringing his bag next to the door so he can put on his coat.

“Niall?” She questions.

“No, you don’t know him mom,” He says putting on his coat.

“Is that who you were texting earlier?” She insists. Damn it, she really picked her time to do the interrogation.

“I told you it was Stacey texting me,” He lies once again but his mom is having none of it.

“Son, you have the exact same face as when you broke that cable accidentally when you were younger and kept insisting it wasn’t you. You don’t have to tell me who it is, but I’d like to know who this person is eventually,” She smiles at him and turns back on her chair and keeps watching her show.

“Yeah, eventually,” He says putting on his boots on and grabs his bag to leave the house.

Louis’ place isn’t far from his, but it’s way too cold outside to walk there.

It’s about a 3 minutes’ drive before he arrives at the house. He gets out of his car and he’s gotta admit, he’s really nervous about this. He shouldn’t be, but he is.

It takes few seconds after he knocks before a woman opens the door. She’s much smaller than Harry. She has light brown hair and a huge smile on her face.

“Hi, you must be Harry, come in, it’s cold outside,” She says letting him inside and closing the door behind him.

“Here, you can give me your coat. Would you like some hot chocolate? Or a snack?” She offers him again with her smile on her face and Harry is quite taken aback by her. He’s never met a woman so happy to see someone.

“Uh, no, thank you though,” He smiles taking off his boots.

“I’m Nancy if you need anything, don’t be shy. Louis’ in his room, last door to the right in the hallway,” She says putting his coat in the closet in the entrance as he walks to his door. He knocks and enters when he hears Louis tell him he could.

“Hey H, ready for some studying?” Louis smiles cleaning his stuff a bit to make more room for Harry to sit with him on his bed.

“I’ve never been this excited,” He says sarcastically which makes Louis roll his eyes. “Your mom seemed pretty excited to see me,” He points out laughing a bit.

“My mom? Oh, Nancy’s not my mom,” Louis says as he puts notes in a folder and takes another one from his backpack.

“Is she your step-mom then?”

“No, she’s one of the families who welcome players during the season. I live about 10 hours away from here so I’m staying with Nancy and another player here,” Louis explains and that would also explain why there’s nothing really personal in the bedroom. There’s no decoration, no poster, there’s only a framed picture of Louis on the shelf, but it’s too far to see who he’s with.

“That’s nice. Let’s get started,” Harry says opening his notes on chapter one.

…

“According to Freud, our behavior is influenced by what? Name at least three factors,” Louis reads the question from the test the teacher gave them to get ready for their final exam.

“Our subconscious, our dreams and our desires,” Harry says holding up one finger after each point.

“Correct, your turn,” Louis says giving him the sheet with the questions.

“What did Pavlov discover during his experimentation with dogs?” Harry reads and Louis doesn’t think twice before answering.

“He discovered that you can reinforce a behavior. If we take example of his experimentation, he was able to make the dog salivate with just the sound of a bell. He would ring a bell and then bring meat to the dog and when the dog would see the meat, they would salivate. He repeated this for a while and after some time, he realized that the dog associated the bell with the meat and would start salivating right when he would ring the bell,”

“This is much more than needed Lou,”

“This is how I get great grades. I always fill all the lines,” He justifies and Harry just shrugs handing him the sheet.

They go over the brain cells, the communication between them. Also the nervous system, sensation, perception, how we learn, motivation and they conclude with the memory.

“You did good,” Louis says. “But I did better,” He smiles as Harry laughs sarcastically at him.

“Haha, very funny. I just don’t spend half of my free time studying,” He says even though he actually does. He just has a bit of a hard time sometimes to answer some questions by the way they’re formulated.

“Well it’s not like I have much to do anyway. We can’t go out when we have games the day after and I rarely party before a practice either. Also, we have to pass our classes otherwise we don’t play,” Louis explains also cleaning up his stuff and putting it away on his nightstand.

“There’s a difference between passing your classes and having a 93% average,”

“I like being good at everything,” Louis laughs as Harry joins him back on his bed.

“You’re not a very good kisser though,” Harry teases and Louis gasps.

“Excuse you! You took me by surprise and I didn’t even kiss you back so you wouldn’t know,”

“Excuses,” Harry smiles and so does Louis.

“Do you wanna watch a movie?” Louis asks and Harry nods. “The Mighty Ducks?” Louis proposes with a huge smile on his face.

“No way! This is the same thing as if I proposed The Cutting Edge. How about Paper Towns?”

“Is that the movie from John Green’s book where they have cancer?” Louis asks turning on his laptop and typing Netflix into the search bar.

“No, that’s the Fault in our Stars, this is one is indeed by John Green but it’s the story about a guy who has a crush on a girl and she disappears and he looks for her. At least that’s what I think it’s about, I haven’t seen it,” Harry says watching Louis getting on Netflix.

“It has shitty ratings,” Louis says clicking on the movie.

“Then we’ll both suffer together if it’s that bad,” Harry says pressing play on the movie as Louis rolls his eyes at him. He moves closer to Louis on the bed so he can see the movie properly. Standing so close to Louis isn’t as awkward as he thought it would be, it’s actually really comfortable and he wouldn’t even mind cuddling him.

…

Harry wakes up with his head resting on top of Louis’ and the computer screen is shut off. He doesn’t know what time it is, but he does know he must head back home right away.

He lifts Louis’ head from his shoulder and lays it on the pillow trying his best to not wake him up. He closes the laptop and puts it on the floor next to Louis’ bed. He uses the blanket at the end of the bed to cover Louis’ body with it so he doesn’t get cold.

He takes a last look at Louis peacefully sleeping and can’t help but think about how beautiful he is. He was never able to look at Louis this way without him shooting him a look, but now, he knows he shouldn’t have.

Louis has the most beautiful and longest eyelashes in the world. He looks so soft right now unlike every other way where he tries to appear as a tough hockey player.

Harry swifts Louis’ fringe off his forehead and lays a gentle kiss before putting his hair back in place. He picks up his bag and leaves the room without a sound.

He finally makes it to his car and opens his phone to see it’s 1am and he’s got 3 texts from his mom:

_We’re babysitting your baby cousin in a week :)_

_Are you coming back for the night?_

_Harry, please reply… I’m starting to get worried…_

Fuck, he shouldn’t have fallen asleep. He can already hear his mother rant about how he should text her when he spends the night as someone’s place and blablabla.

…

When he wakes up, he goes in the kitchen to make himself a coffee and sees his mother in her chair in the living room doing crossed words but she closes the book when she sees him. There we go.

“Harry Styles, would you mind telling me where the hell you were last night?” She asks with her motherly voice. His mother was never the type to not let Harry do whatever he wanted as long as he came home when he said he would. She was always chill about everything really, except that one time Harry got really wasted and got a cage tattooed on his ribcage because he found that really funny and he got grounded for 3 weeks.

That was pretty much the only time she got really mad at him, but he feels like she’s not actually going to believe he was really studying last night.

“I told you I was going to a friend’s house to study,” He says taking his mug and joining her in the living room.

“All night?” She raises an eyebrow.

“No. We decided to watch a movie after and we ended up falling asleep,” He says truthfully.

“That must have been one hard studying lesson,” She stills sounds very skeptical about the previous night. “Did you use protection at least?” She asks and Harry chokes on his coffee right away.

“Mom! We didn’t have sex!” He says much louder than he should’ve because she shushes him saying Robin is still sleeping. “I told you we were studying and then we watched a movie and fell asleep, I don’t know what more you want. I’m not a kid,”

“I know you’re not Harry, but I was really worried. When my son says he’s going to a friend’s house to study, I expect him to be home around at least nine or ten pm, not in the early hours,” She explains and as he’s about to answer, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

_Sorry for fallin asleep like that, but i had a lot of fun last night_

“See? We just fell asleep, nothing more,” He says showing his phone to his mother.

“Louis uh? I’ve never heard you talk about him before,” Oh god…

“He’s a friend, I already told you that,”

“What’s his last name? How long have you known him?” She shoots him questions and he instantly regrets showing her the text.

“Tomlinson, his full name is Louis Tomlinson, I’ve known him since this summer, no more questions about him, he’s a friend I told you,” He insists and his mother chuckles.

“I was just teasing you hun, but I’d love to know more about him, you rarely have friends that are not involved with arenas,” She says and it’s true. Niall is probably one of his only friends that is not a figure skater besides Louis.

“Well, he’s a hockey player so,” He informs her and she does a very unnecessary exaggerated gasp.

“My son is friends with a hockey player? I think I’m gonna faint,” She says dramatically wiping her forehead with the back of her hand as if she started sweating as Harry rolls his eyes.

“Mom, stop-“

“Anne, are you alright?” Robin comes in and great.

“Honey, Harry is friends with a hockey player! I swear I’m not joking,” She exclaims and he seems surprised but at least he didn’t do a scene like his mom.

“Which one?” He asks and Harry rolls his eyes once again and he swears his eyes will get stuck.

“Louis Tomlinson, is that what you told me his last name was?” And now it’s Robin’s time to gasp. God what’s with this family and being extra?

“You’re friends with Tomlinson? How come you didn’t tell me? He’s the best player on the team, he has one of the brightest future ahead of him. You must bring him here so I can meet him!” He says excitingly and Harry shakes his head laughing. This is way too ridiculous.

“I’ll make sure to ask him next time I’m balls deep,” He jokes standing up from the couch leaving them to their business.

“Harry!” His mom says mortified and he bursts out laughing.

“I was joking, chill. But I’ll ask him when he gets back,” He informs them and thinking about not seeing Louis for a week shouldn’t make him feel this upset.

He can go on his life for a week without seeing Louis, he definitely can do that.

…

Turns out he can’t. He and Louis text every single day and Niall keeps telling Harry off about it saying he can’t have a proper conversation with him because he’s always on his god damn phone.

“So, you in?” Niall asks and Harry would be lying if he said he knew what Niall was talking about.

“Yeah, sure,” He says without knowing what he just got himself into.

“Just be at my place around six, also, uh, my sister will be there, just don’t mind her too much,” He says making him laugh and Harry’s attention is brought back to his phone when he sees that Louis replied to his text.

…

When Harry knocks at Niall’s door he’s met with a beautiful young girl with long red hair and bright blue eyes. Alyssa is different from the last time he’s seen her at practice, well, to be fair, it’s been a couple years.

“Harry,” She says with her eyes widened. “Niall, Harry’s here,” She shouts letting Harry enter their house. “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming you asshole,” He hears her whisper to Niall which makes Alyssa’s brother burst out laughing right before he greets Harry.

“Just put your coat there and follow me,” Niall instructs and he follows him downstairs in what appears to be a living room. There’s a huge plasma TV with a lot of consoles. There’s a Nintendo 64, which he didn’t know still existed, there’s an Xbox, a Wii and a playstation 3.

“So which one do you wanna start off with?” Niall asks bending down near the consoles and Harry’s really not sure what he’s talking about.

“Huh?”

“Damn it! I knew you weren’t listening you dickhead,” Niall says in disbelief but he ends up laughing when Harry just shrugs admitting he was in fact not listening to him. “You’re so into him, I can’t believe it,” He points out putting a game in the Wii.

“Am not!” Harry fights back but Niall just laughs.

“Sure thing,”

“What about you and Stacey uh?”

“We went on our first date last weekend,” He informs Harry while sitting down and handing Harry his controller. “At least I can admit that I like her and don’t pretend to be friends and then get really sappy,”

“We’re not sappy, we act like we’re friends!” He exclaims as he turns his face to look at the TV as it shows the logo of Mario Kart. Harry is the absolute king at this game. He went through a summer where he would only play the Wii and ended doing every race on every level and ended up in first place in every single one of them.

“Bro, you should see your face when he texts you. If you do that face when I text you, we’re going to have a problem,” He laughs as they pick their characters and Harry always picks baby peach and Niall picks Toad.

Niall picks the rainbow road probably thinking he’s going to win against Harry but that road is Harry’s favorite and no one has beaten him yet on this one.

“So, when is Louis coming back?” Niall asks when they’re on their fifth race and Harry has won four of them.

“Tomorrow morning. They’re going to practice during the evening and they have a game in two days,” Harry says remembering that he’s babysitting his cousin with his family in two days and he’s very excited.

“You’ll finally leave your damn phone alone, I think I’ll plan you guys a date as soon as possible,” He says half joking.

“We’re not that bad,” Harry pouts and Niall steals his phone.

“You have two texts from him already and it’s been one minute since you left your phone,” He points out and Harry takes back his phone closing it. It really bugs him to not see what Louis wrote him but he wants to prove to Niall he can function normally without talking to Louis.

He ends up doing a proper job at that and doesn’t check his phone for the rest of the time he’s with Niall. He looks at his messages as soon as he gets in his car though.

_When i come back we should study for our finals, i mean other subjects_

_If u want, im not forcing you, it was a proposition_

_Its just that its better studying with someone else than alone_

_But again if u dont want to, ill understand_

Is Louis nervous about asking Harry to hang out with him? If so, that’s really fucking cute.

 _I would love to :)_ He sends back. He almost apologizes for replying so late but he remembers Louis doesn’t have to know everything Harry does.

…

“So I was thinking we could go see the hockey game tonight with Tyler,” Harry says as Tyler is sat on his lap playing with his toy as they all watch TV.

“Are you okay?” Robin asks raising his eyebrow.

“Yeah, why?” Harry replies confused by his reaction.

“Nothing, it’s just that I thought I just heard you proposing to go to a hockey game,” He says smiling making Harry roll his eyes. “But it’s a great idea, the kid will enjoy it as much as you’ll enjoy seeing your boy,”

“He’s not my boy, will you all stop,” He insists event though it’s pointless.

“We’re going to a hockey game Ty,” Robin says excited to Tyler.

“Goal!” Tyler says making everyone laugh.

“Not yet buddy,” Harry says sitting the kid on his thighs and he looks at a children’s book with him.

The kid might only be three but he’s smart as hell. He can tell any body part and he knows his name, he knows what animal is what, what is their sound. He’s going to be such a smart kid in school.

…

“Goal!” Tyler shouts when the players get on the ice right before the game gets started.

“Not yet Ty, they’re just getting on the ice, the game hasn’t started,” Robin explains him knowing that it won’t make any difference because he doesn’t really understand.

Tyler spends most of the game standing up and dancing like crazy during breaks and he’s getting a lot of attention and everyone looks really fond of him. How could they not? He’s one of the cutest kid ever.

He cheers a lot when the local team scores, although they have to tell him there’s a goal because he doesn’t really understand why people scream so much all of the sudden.

“Goal!” Tyler shouts making everyone laugh. At least, this time it’s appropriate.

“Wasn’t that your boyfriend who scored?” Harry’s mom asks smiling at him.

“For the love of god, he isn’t my boyfriend. And yes that’s him,” He says taking Tyler and sitting him on his legs so he stops jumping everywhere he’s giving him a heartache.


End file.
